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Another Flash

from My Big Break - volume 1 by Ben Seretan

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The afternoon after I had finally taken someone home I had been admiring for weeks at a distance I bought an expensive jumpsuit online. I had spent the previous day eyeing it but couldn't commit, I wasn't quite ready, but after the night and the morning we spent together I felt bold and reckless and desirable enough to pull off a one piece garment. I imagined myself walking down the street in it in a new pair of white tennis shoes, I imagined its many zippers, I imagined how pleased I would feel drawing it from my closet each morning I decided to wear it. My expensive piece of clothing.

In therapy the night before we ended up spending together I told my therapist about how I had gotten drunk and eaten fried chicken and took drugs and also done a vigorous workout class all in an afternoon - not necessarily in that order - with a friend of a friend. And my therapist and I had a good laugh about it. I had expected her to say something along the lines of why do you feel you are choosing to engage in self destructive behavior. Why did you decide to stick around once you felt uncomfortable. Why did you feel the need to make sure that this person thought you were fun and spontaneous and maybe a little out of control. Why are you troubled by all of this. Why is it at all notable. Why did this person's apparent need for companionship compel you. Why did you want to stick around. But instead she laughed and told me it was good I was having fun, she said no, look, you don't need drugs to have a good time so when you do drugs make sure to have a good time. She told me to keep it green. To remember why you came in the room. Remember how broken you felt, how baffling your actions were to yourself, how even reaching out to schedule the first appointment removed a tremendous weight from your shoulders. She told me I was doing good work and I felt like I was doing good work. She said nothing bad happened and you're aware of your heart, what's the problem. She said you seem like a different person to me now, these some months later, you carry yourself differently - that's called progress. I talked about how every morning I wake up I forget that my body is smaller now than it used to be, I expect still to take up the same amount of room I used - like a phantom limb, phantom fat, I still think it's there. And the emotional weight is like that, too. When I wake up I still think it's there, even if it's gone. It takes a moment to feel how featherlight my heart has become.

I heard an incredible story that's not mine to tell about riding a motor bike through the jungle and at top speed on a highway shoulder, about climbing through a deep valley of wildflowers, about being fed opium smoke as the sun set, receiving it as if the eucharist, tenderly.

I saw online that it was the two year anniversary of this particular photo being posted, a day when I had walked miles through the snow to buy groceries and, amidst the deepest and darkest personal turmoil I hope to ever know, I was moved by the blanket of white quiet the weather had rolled out in the park I was crossing. The cold calm clean of it, I took a selfie and you could see how rosy my cheeks are, you can see my eyes crinkling up, you can see me forcing a smile. I so desperately It was a shock to see that face. My beard was large and unruly then, my face was rounder with much less obvious cheekbones and I can't help but see a lot of conflict in my eyes. I hardly recognize that person but, then again, I hardly recognize myself at all, anymore.

There is a flash of utter peace I experience after the show in my living room when people continue to hang out, finishing off the leftover bottles of red wine and chatting around my kitchen island until well after I had planned to go to sleep. People keep arriving, long after the music has ended. We drink from plastic cups and talk about nothing really, nothing important, but everyone is kind to one another and everyone hugs everyone whenever someone leaves for the night. There is a flash of utter peace when I do not want anything more than this, companionship and ease.

On an unexpectedly warm and sunshine afternoon I take a long stroll on a long lunch break and talk to my parents on the phone, one after the other, and they both sound happy and okay, we chat freely and I cross over to avenue A with my cellphone pushed to my ear, wearing a light jacket. I go to Superiority Burger, one of the few unapologetically Good things that makes me love living in New York City (others, and there are probably more - the public library, specifically the Mulberry Street location, all the different types of church music you hear walking around on Sunday mornings, the Rockaways, the Staten Island Ferry, Punjabi Deli, the S train in Brooklyn, minor league baseball, dancing until past 4am, halal food from a cart, bodega coffee). They have this special involving stewed tomatoes and when I spoon the first bite it is absurdly bright and stinging with garlic, I feel the slick of warmed and fancy olive oil on my tongue, I am reminded of eating tomatoes on a beach in the Italian riviera in the summer of 2016, I can feel that same sun on my face, the salt on my skin and so I laugh out loud to myself in the shop. Another flash.

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from My Big Break - volume 1, released July 16, 2020

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Ben Seretan Climax, New York

**ECSTATIC JOY**

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