Every Anxious Wave

by Mo Daviau

Besides, why would we need music if our lives were exactly as we wanted them to be?

Song lyrics are a particular type of poetry, laying bare your bones and helping you feel something other than sorrow and failure. Song lyrics reminded me that I may be so lucky as to fall in love again someday. Song lyrics are scripture for guys like me and Wayne.

She clicked her tongue at me. “Do I look like I give a shit about the Smiths?” “No. You appear to have lived a full, productive life without any help from Morrissey.” “Damn right I have.”

“I never got to see Elliott Smith,” she said. “He was great.” “No shit he was great.” “Are you asking for something, Dr. Lena?” She smiled at me. “I’m not a doctor, and yes. I want to see Elliott.” “It takes two hours for all the computer stuff to reset.”

Lena nodded her head. “Why did you want to come here when you knew it would make you sad?” “Because I want to be sad, Lena. I like being sad. You like being sad. Elliott Smith loved being sad so much he wrote the soundtrack to our sad lives and then he died so we could all be even more sad.”

“I baked cookies this morning. Oatmeal chocolate chip. Raisins are for losers, but oatmeal is healthy, and I care about you. I had a few in my bag that I was going to surprise you with, but you’re here now, so here’s the whole batch.”

“Time travel isn’t safe,” I shouted after her. “There aren’t, like, emotional condoms that prevent sorrow ninety-eight point five percent of the time.” “I actually kind of like this about you, Bender,” she shouted from across the apartment. “That you and I don’t use emotional condoms. We just let the messy goo of who we are fly free, threatening to impregnate us with insecurity or infect us with the pain of true intimacy.

Lena’s bottom lip began to quiver. “You know what? Fuck this ‘fight’ shit. Why do I have to fight all the time when other girls don’t? You take someone like me, who has been treated like garbage by just about everyone, and people think they’re being supportive when they say, ‘Fight. Be tough.’ But what they’re really saying is that I have to be the one to change, not the other person, not the way society works. Well, I’m not tough, and I am so goddamn jealous of the girls who get to be weak, who get everything they want by just sitting there, looking pretty and dumb. Fuck you for telling me to fight.”

She worried that she wouldn’t have money to eat (“Pad thai is eight ninety-five plus tip, Karl!”), and I’d remind her that the wormhole had already brought in mad bank, and that I would buy us an Airstream trailer to live in. (“I may love you, Karl, but I’ve smelled your farts, and I doubt an Airstream trailer has sufficient ventilation to allow our relationship to blossom in such tight quarters.”)

But after a while I realized that the body will just keep crying about the same thing forever. The human brain, when faced with years of sorrow, never gets a clue and shapes up, and time travel only makes it worse.

We dropped out of Tufts because we were going to be successful at this music thing, and also because we were pulling 2.0 GPAs and were about to be kicked out. Milo bought me a guitar, a Danelectro, red and white.

What if her heart was no longer bruised? What would it mean to love someone who was whole?

“How much of our true selves we have to give up just to get through the day. The thing is, we do rely on other people for happiness, and you 2010 people need to quit pretending like you’re okay being alone, eating salad out of a bag in front of your computer, when what you want is a family and lovers and people who can see into your heart.”