if I clean everything would you come back (variations on a theme)

the first person to show me this song was a friend, a complicated friend, who i lost two days after my birthday, two days after he sexually assaulted an even closer, mostly uncomplicated, friend.

there’s a variation on this theme.

the first person i shared this song with was a close friend, my first best friend, who i lost a month later when i chose to stop speaking to him, for reasons of jealousy, of hurt, of a misplaced, unspoken trust that neither of us would ever change, which we did.

and another variation.

the first person i came to for help pretended to know this song already when i played it for him. i told him it sends me down a spiral of sadness but in like a Good Way not a Sad Way and he said yeah i’ve heard of this guy before, yeah his mixtapes are pretty good.

it’s the same melody over and over again but composed differently throughout all followed by a weak whisper of “that’s not it” and if you listen to it too many times you can’t help but grow angry, after each cold, enchanting refrain plays, why that’s not it because it certainly sounds like it should be it.

and you’ll grow angry again and again because the weak whisper begins to ask again and again if i cleaned everything would you come back, if i cleaned everything would you come back and you just want to scream NO they won’t. because cleanliness isn’t the point. it never was the point.

the point is the betrayal, and how i wasn’t surprised by them big or small. i’ve been the person both asking and being asked this question and the answer will always be no. if i cleaned everything, my behavior, my innate sociopathy, my inability to see women as humans, friends, would you come back?

if i washed myself of my jealousy, acknowledged that my actions were rooted in the desire to be the first and only person in your life, said i’m sorry, would you come back?

if i show you something special, something that could just be ours, would you realize no one’s asking you to pretend, and would you put down the xanax for just a second, and simply be?

three different people, all variations on a theme.