Non-fiction prose by Devin Hamilton
Dormant Revelations
The last time we spoke I cancelled our plans to meet for coffee. I had taken my brother to his first AA meeting the night before, and the consequences of this were that he finished half a bottle of vodka and was arrested for assaulting a police officer. She understood my need to untangle from this and other current dramas. Soon after I became submerged within sordid affairs, and hardly reached out to anyone. I told myself I was accepting the temporary shadows.
One Sunday in the spring I received an imploring text message. I immediately abandoned my mania to set out that same day, with the address of a local in-patient eating disorder program input into my GPS. She was waiting in the lobby when I arrived. I handed over a pack of Marlboro Reds and she wrapped her arms around me. I felt her ribs poking through a thin white t-shirt. A nurse at the front told me I was allowed to stay until lunch at 1:30. We walked past a row of treadmills, and a yoga studio, on the way to the small patio in the back where we were allowed to smoke. She told me that she got in trouble earlier in the day for exerting herself too physically during a group yoga session. The instructor forced her to lie on her mat. We laughed together as she recounted the story. Without context the image was absurd. We laughed because it illuminated her pain, and we both wanted her to feel better.
Smoking and baking in the spring sun we agreed it was always seamless to see one another. To a degree this felt exactly the same as any time we saw each other. Together, we dismantled. I let her talk most of the time, passing the lighter across the table when she reached for a new smoke. I offered my perspective when she asked for it. This disease was only one of the many despairs that we shared. As the mandated lunchtime approached her smoking grew fervent. A friend from the clinic came out to get her. The woman shook my hand and told me she had heard a lot about me. I looked across the table where we sat and smiled, and saw it reciprocated. We hugged, clinging to each other for a moment. I promised to see her again if she was still in the clinic the following week. That was the last time I heard from her for almost a year.
I tried for a couple of months to reach out. I sent Instagram DMs, used FaceTime for the first time, and downloaded Facebook back onto my phone. Months later I heard from a mutual acquaintance that she had been seeking pills. I was out in the woods when I heard this, and I remember the sun having difficulty clearing the intense canopy of Northern trees. Weeks after, another mutual acquaintance revealed that she had re-involved herself with heroine. Of course, I don’t mean that she entered into the relationship voluntarily. I nodded when I heard this and offered my support to her friend who shared this puzzle piece with me sadly.
On a different Sunday in the winter I received another imploring text message. This time it was from a number my phone didn’t recognize. It took only an instant for me to understand who it was from. She was contacting me because she needed a number from my phone. She hoped I was doing well, and wanted the other person’s number because she needed to make amends for her absence. I obliged and told her to get in contact if she wanted to meet up. I haven’t heard anything since.
I cannot subscribe to the notion that everything happens for a reason. Shit happens in life for no reason besides the reason that shit happens in life. I think it is important, though, to take to time to ruminate with your experiences to find whatever inch of wisdom or warning it can teach you. You do not have to experience death to experience loss. I call it Living Loss when the party you are disconnected from still breathes and aches. And loss is not always a spontaneous force outside of the parameters of our control. I call this Voluntary Loss. What truth I can offer now is that through no fault of our own we all leave our teeth marks in another person’s flesh eventually. Personally, to experience the profound, especially in regards to connection, I eagerly collect scars.
The last time we spoke I cancelled our plans to meet for coffee. I had taken my brother to his first AA meeting the night before, and the consequences of this were that he finished half a bottle of vodka and was arrested for assaulting a police officer. She understood my need to untangle from this and other current dramas. Soon after I became submerged within sordid affairs, and hardly reached out to anyone. I told myself I was accepting the temporary shadows.
One Sunday in the spring I received an imploring text message. I immediately abandoned my mania to set out that same day, with the address of a local in-patient eating disorder program input into my GPS. She was waiting in the lobby when I arrived. I handed over a pack of Marlboro Reds and she wrapped her arms around me. I felt her ribs poking through a thin white t-shirt. A nurse at the front told me I was allowed to stay until lunch at 1:30. We walked past a row of treadmills, and a yoga studio, on the way to the small patio in the back where we were allowed to smoke. She told me that she got in trouble earlier in the day for exerting herself too physically during a group yoga session. The instructor forced her to lie on her mat. We laughed together as she recounted the story. Without context the image was absurd. We laughed because it illuminated her pain, and we both wanted her to feel better.
Smoking and baking in the spring sun we agreed it was always seamless to see one another. To a degree this felt exactly the same as any time we saw each other. Together, we dismantled. I let her talk most of the time, passing the lighter across the table when she reached for a new smoke. I offered my perspective when she asked for it. This disease was only one of the many despairs that we shared. As the mandated lunchtime approached her smoking grew fervent. A friend from the clinic came out to get her. The woman shook my hand and told me she had heard a lot about me. I looked across the table where we sat and smiled, and saw it reciprocated. We hugged, clinging to each other for a moment. I promised to see her again if she was still in the clinic the following week. That was the last time I heard from her for almost a year.
I tried for a couple of months to reach out. I sent Instagram DMs, used FaceTime for the first time, and downloaded Facebook back onto my phone. Months later I heard from a mutual acquaintance that she had been seeking pills. I was out in the woods when I heard this, and I remember the sun having difficulty clearing the intense canopy of Northern trees. Weeks after, another mutual acquaintance revealed that she had re-involved herself with heroine. Of course, I don’t mean that she entered into the relationship voluntarily. I nodded when I heard this and offered my support to her friend who shared this puzzle piece with me sadly.
On a different Sunday in the winter I received another imploring text message. This time it was from a number my phone didn’t recognize. It took only an instant for me to understand who it was from. She was contacting me because she needed a number from my phone. She hoped I was doing well, and wanted the other person’s number because she needed to make amends for her absence. I obliged and told her to get in contact if she wanted to meet up. I haven’t heard anything since.
I cannot subscribe to the notion that everything happens for a reason. Shit happens in life for no reason besides the reason that shit happens in life. I think it is important, though, to take to time to ruminate with your experiences to find whatever inch of wisdom or warning it can teach you. You do not have to experience death to experience loss. I call it Living Loss when the party you are disconnected from still breathes and aches. And loss is not always a spontaneous force outside of the parameters of our control. I call this Voluntary Loss. What truth I can offer now is that through no fault of our own we all leave our teeth marks in another person’s flesh eventually. Personally, to experience the profound, especially in regards to connection, I eagerly collect scars.
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Devin Hamilton is a writer obsessed with shadow and movement. She enjoys an overindulgence of coffee and wine. In her work she aims to capture The Edge. You can connect with her at twitter @DevinHamilton1 or on instagram @DevMarieHamilton.
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