No Song for You

I didn’t listen to my own music for 5 years. 5 years is a long time to not listen to your own music. I didn’t even find new music. There was zero music. Don’t get me wrong, I heard music. It just wasn’t mine and I didn’t hear it. You would’ve thought I sawed my own ears off.

It was my own fault, sure. I chose to hermetically seal myself in a 2 bedroom coffin with a little gremlin ex-girlfriend at the Spotify wheel, sadistically constructing the most banal playlists of all time. I was like those apes that white-coats run experiments on at NASA: “So what will the ape do if we play him exclusively TikTok hits for five years?” The short answer: have you ever seen an ape fashion a noose out of headphone cable?

This year, 2024, I finally worked up the gumption to move out of our apartment. The Reserve, they called it, as if it was some fancy twice barreled bourbon.

I remember packing my things and wondering,

“Wow, moving is a lot easier than I remembered. I must be so much more efficient on my own.”

That was absolutely not the case…

It dawned on me, as I walked back in to grab a few things. Nothing in this little prison was even mine. Mind you, I absolutely obliterated my bank account on most of this furniture. Even so, none of it had any hint of my own liking. It was actually rather impressive, five years, and I had hardly made any impressionable mark of my own on this place.

If the apartment were a painting of a dolphin, I would’ve been the one to pencil in its blowhole.

“I’m taking back what’s mine!” doesn’t really hit the same when all you’re taking back is a little black porpoise sphincter.

Mind you, I made many attempts to nonchalantly scatter little pieces of me around like some depressed easter bunny. A little Jesus and Mary Chain here, a few Haruki Murakami novels over there… She never once asked to listen to any of my music when we drove. OVER FIVE YEARS, and I drove her to and from work: every. single. day.

I came up with a little plot, where I’d nonchalantly time a song to play the best part right as she was getting into the car. It was Kurt Vile’s ‘Wakin on a Pretty Day’, the song that seemed to always magically appear anytime I needed it.

I giggled and rubbed my hands with delight at the thought. I imagined that she’d walk in and say:

“Wow, what is this song, it sounds so cool… so deep!” Her eyes wide with bewilderment.

Then I’d swoop in for the kill:

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. A little artist named Kurt Vile, ever heard of em?” brushing my hair behind my ear. Making sure not to over explain for a little gravitas.

And you know, I thought if I was lucky, maybe she’d even ask me why I like the damn song so much.

Well, what really happened was: She walked in, she jabbed the mute button, and then she practically gave her phone an enema with the USB cord to get her music rolling over mine.

It was the same three artists she always listened to over and over again for the whole fifty minute ride home.

***

It didn’t just end at the music. I was absolutely thriving, 40 extra pounds of cortisol weight, no sleep, great job title – horrible pay, and burning through packs of cigarettes almost as quickly as my paycheck. I didn’t write a single piece of my own writing in those five years.

I wrote her hackneyed poetry, sure, if that counts.

I looked in the mirror and I didn’t even recognize this guy. Forty pounds heavier, my lego haircut wasn’t mine, my clothes weren’t mine. Nothing was mine. And then those thoughts would be interrupted by a knock on the bathroom door asking why I’m taking so long.

***

She was Russian. Her name was Aleksandra, and if you’re American then you should know that the common shortening for Aleksandra is Sasha. Among friends she was Sasha. American’s would always tell her:

“Oh that’s pretty, it’s like Alex and Sandra in one name!” and she’d sneer.

She had lived in Russia for half her life. Her parents were Russian and her father had won a green card in a lottery through his work. So they moved here to Michigan, where us American troglodytes live.

Everything was always a comparison.

“In Russia, the taxes are already included in the price tag, so you don’t have to make those calculations yourself.”

“In Russia, schools are so much better than they are here. No one here does math correctly.”

“Americans are fat and we can’t eat their vegetables because they’re all fake.”

“Nothing compares to Russian literature. The only book you ever need to read is War and Peace.”

“I think the Russian brand instant noodles taste better than the Japanese ones.”

“The Sushi restaurants in Russia make better Sushi.”

Some of these comparisons ranged between truthful to downright farcical.

***

I wanted to start taking walks because I knew I was unhealthy. I had many breakdowns and I wanted sunlight, I wanted the bare minimum of exercise to get that spark back and so I told her that I was going to start taking walks and I said that she could join me if she so pleased.

She did not, but she also didn’t want me to walk without her. I asked her why she didn’t want to walk and she said:

“In Russia, it’s so much better to walk around, there’s so much life… But here? What will we even see when we walk? Even the air is different in Russia…”

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I take a fifteen minute walk I don’t exactly need a red carpet rolled out for me.

She didn’t drive herself anywhere, I drove her. She never got groceries, I did. When I tried to convince her to buy herself a car for her own piece of mind, there was always an excuse. Even though she always had money to afford one herself.

I spent days planning this big Valentine’s day surprise, I decorated the whole living room pink with those sparkly string lights aesthetically hung and massive pink balloons everywhere. A pink tarp on the floor with two easels, paint brushes, and a bottle of champagne and all of the gifts I had hand selected from a list I used to keep of anything I ever overheard her say she wished she had.

The living room was a Pinterest girl’s wet dream and she had previously mentioned how painting was such a passion of hers and she never has time to paint anymore. So logically, I thought it would be a thoughtful gift.

Any time that Valentine’s day was referenced again in the future, all she could ever remember was that I didn’t write her a poem that time. I used to write her poems for every holiday, but I didn’t have time because I started a new job at a tech company in Ann Arbor and I was spending all of my free time planning our Valentine’s champagne and paint date.

When I got that job after months of struggle and doing certification after certification, I remember Sasha was disappointed that it wasn’t remote.

“How will we be able to live out of the country if you’re not remote?”

She didn’t want me to take it.

Then when I sat down with her family. Her father asked, “So is it a long drive to your new job?” I explained it was an hour away, they all just bobbed their heads and glanced at one another, followed by a long silence like someone had just slammed a gavel. The job wasn’t mentioned again the rest of the night.

My life felt like I was a gerbil sitting under one of those water feeders, tongue dangling out, lips cracked. Maybe if I did a little spin, or pushed my snout against the glass for the big faces to see, more little drops might eek out.

She was crying. It was night time. Her mother had just got off the phone with her. Talking about how she was going to leave her father and move back to the motherland. How her and her brother don’t care for her. She said she would’ve killed herself a long time ago, if it weren’t for her mom and aunt back in Russia. Sasha laid crying on the bed and I came in to see if she was okay. She told me about what her mom said. She had a little metal cap and as she explained the conversation with her mom to me, she dug it into my arm. The more she explained and I tried to listen and show that I cared, she dug that little metal cap into my arm deeper and deeper. At the end of the night my arm looked like someone had festooned red ribbon up and down the inside of my forearm.

I could just hear my mother’s words in my head:

“You’re usually so good at handling him. You know how he is,” after my father drunkenly assaulted us, berated us, or kicked me out.

***

I had this Russian nesting doll, or as Russians call it: Matryoshka. Matryoshka translates to something like ‘little matron’.

It was completely wooden with gold and blue clothing painted on.

In many ways it reminded me of Sasha. She certainly was no matron, but there was something about peeling back a layer only to find an even smaller, more anemic layer staring back at you. I just kept popping each layer open, one after another until all that was left was one tiny little matryoshka resting in the palm of my hand. So miniscule, so light in my hands like air – so hollow.

After peeling everything back all that remained was nothing. Why was I so afraid of this little peanut shell? I could see now why she wanted me to be so small, so hollow – because that’s exactly what she was. A scared, tiny wooden girl.

***

In October 2024, when I walked out of my new apartment, into my new Bronco I paid for with my new job. I went cruising on the 96 highway, the sun was coming down and so the sky looked pink and wide open. I turned on the radio and Waking on a Pretty Day by Kurt Vile came on. I looked at that wide open sky and I just kept driving into it. It felt like if I kept driving towards it, the sky would stay pretty and I would never be able to stop hearing the music of it all.