Free Clearly Now, the Rain by Eli Hastings

come back into my sight. And i think, somewhere Eli is doing this. Somewhere Eli is outside in the world and he is fighting and working for himself and things outside himself too. And i live for that, i live through you in ways you probably never imagined. And i say i lie because there is only one part to me, and everything i do and don’t do comes from only one place. When i shower i still try to wash off old scars, and when i get out i want to shake my skin off because it’s so tight, like a bag that’s too full. And it’s stupid and wrong because there isn’t anything that i don’t have. i live for the people i love, out of a certain fairness or unfairness, i live because i am unwilling to put my pain on the people i love. i don’t have other parts like you do, but in loving you i have access to other parts, through you.
    And in this letter, too, came the confirmation of a suspicion. All that she said:
I once lost someone, someone who was like me, someone I loved more than any child should have to bear. He told me one night, both of us bleeding and crying, that soon he would die.
    And then he did.
    That’s all she told me.
    That’s all I know—if I were to speculate, I’d say that he killed himself, this child-lover. I’d guess that he couldn’t go on and so he ended it and, as a result, she was imbued with a romantic pull toward that act that would curse her forever.
    Three months before our split, Samar and I had adopted the cat, Ché. Quickly after, he is diagnosed with leukemia. His worsening condition keeps pace with the gulf yawning open between her and me. The last time I exercise my visitation rights he’s jaundiced, moaning in pain. I finally cajole her to bring him to campus for what I suspect will be my last glimpse. Samar does not look me in the eyes when she dumps him into my arms, just tells me where and when to give him back.
    I bring him to the Batcave where Serala is battling her poetry portfolio. She doesn’t blink at his condition and she takes a break to sit on her bed with him in the slanting rays of May sun. He is so far gone at this point that he can’t move around very well, just stares confusedly at things and makes broken meows. His belly is swollen and his ears are turning yellow. Serala caresses him, gets him settled down into a semblance of comfort for a few minutes. In the Batcave it’s like she snatches some moments out of time’s hands just for him and I remember hearing him purr.
    A few days later, Samar calls.
    I’m taking the cat to get put down
, she tells me with the chill and confidence of an iceberg,
so if you want to say goodbye, you better fucking come over
. Ché and his descent toward death is an apt metaphor. I tell her I’d be glad to take Ché to the vet myself, but I can’t make it over. She hangs up on me.
    In the end, she stalls too long, and Ché crawls off somewhere for the dignity of a private passing.
    Serala had never showed nervousness per se, only anxiety from time to time. And she didn’t acknowledge it the night of her avant-garde “thesis defense.” She just acted pissed off and smoked with a violent hand.
    I’m falling all over myself to be supportive and help her but
there’s nothing
, she says, shortly. So, dumbly, I go buy her flowers. I catch up to her a few minutes before it starts and she grabs them out of my hands.
    Fucking idiot—you’re not supposed to buy me
flowers.
    It hurts even though I understand she is just undone—as well as I understand that buying her flowers was a dumb thing to do. I lean against the chain-link fence outside the presentation hall and look away up to the smog-cloaked mountains. Her face reforms around a conciliatory smile and she takes the time to hug me. Then she drags the bouquet away in a death grip, upside down.
    The big room is packed, the floor covered with butcher paper, microphones in different