There is this one single piece of clothing that you could never obtain but you’re sure it would complete your life.
Signalling the right messages to the right people, giving your body the shape you always wanted it to have and making your parents roll their eyes if they’d ever see you in it.
Financially never stable enough, you’ve been buying the wrong size, the wrong colour or dupes. Slowly over time creeping closer and closer, but always an adjacent estimation, never the one you really want. You added tag words to your vinted account that set off a notification on your phone. Your alarm goes off: It’s an extra small, and it’s overpriced. Ugh, who put me in a body like this, you ask yourself and look at your dog sitting on your lap licking your wrist. Smiling at you, it’s the brightest smile you’ve ever seen.
Quit saving for cashmere, it’s not happening.
*
The pocket knife with your name engraved in it, that your granddad gave you many years ago, that stupid-you left on your keychain, that the stupid bouncer confiscated when you entered the club, the existence of which that same stupid fucking bouncer apparently has no recollection of.
Feeling so tired and defeated as you haven’t in a while you tell him, how he promised you, he would take good care of it and you could pick it up when leaving and the pre-drinks made you believe it. Hearing yourself talking and the bouncer turning away, you choose a single word from all the ones you know. “Truth” you say and you poke him right onto those capital letters spelling security on his big chest.
Waking up outside, your nose is bleeding all over your white T-Shirt. Looking up, you see the most beautiful bag on someone else.
*
You are sincerely the single biggest asshole I’ve ever met. I’ve wanted to tell you that for a while now. I’ve always had the words but never the stories. So I made them up, told them around, until you believed them to be true. You told me you never wanted to see or speak to me ever again in your life. I now live in a world where the same word means different things and different T-Shirts can mean the same thing. You don’t get it, nobody gets it. All these words are overused and lost their initial punch. ALL MY LIFE, I’ve been in love with you for ages, how did I never get over anything, ever. I’m a garbage man in this notes app, trying to clean up the mess I made. I’ve spilled everything, I told you every single secret I ever owned and no one believes me anything. I’m not talking anymore, I’m trying to make sense. I need new words.I wear them on and no longer up my sleeve for others to take and I know you know the truth. I really do care now.
I know I can’t find what I’m looking for and I’ve wasted so much time.
*
“She told me the shirt was fake, which worked to her credit, because intellectuals knew that to fetishise an original over a copy was the most unintellectual thing to do.” someone quotes off their phone, while you can only look at a sunset, just like yesterday, but this one is different.
*
You’re hurrying to work on a rainy Tuesday. Taking a left turn too tightly you bump into a stranger, knocking their hat onto the ground. You never looked at their face, but the hat said a single word that kind of threw you off. Walking on, you suddenly see it everywhere: The bus driver, three identically dressed teenagers standing around, the construction worker that gives you a lighter for your cigarette, … Your cold fingers google the word and add “cap hat blck”, your phone shows you an infinite row of black hats. They are all versions of each other. Each one a slight iteration of the one to the left. Each one around 100 euros. You add “the one…” in front of your search query and the same hats as previously appear. When searching that word with “cap hat black fake” all shown hats are suddenly the same but all their owners are individuals like me, just trying to be taken seriously in expressing themselves.
*
With the metal hook of the clothing hanger firmly in your hand, you are holding up a grey sweater, bearing a very ambiguous sentence, to your chest. You signal to your friend, standing at another rack to comment on it. With a frown and a slight smile they say:
“You sure? That’s so not you.”