Reading Perry

Watching Friends, I have always felt quite much sympathy
for Chandler Bing since he was almost as socially
awkward and hopeless as me. Finally, recently
I read Matthew L. Perry’s autobiography

in which he wrote many relatable things, such as
that he used to have nagging thoughts about not being
enough, that he didn’t matter, that he was being
too needy of love. But then when he got it, he was

distrusting it. And he was afraid to drop his game
and show who he really was on the inside, lest folks
notice and leave him. So he hid in sarcastic jokes
as he couldn’t have survived them leaving him again,
 

claiming it would have turned him into a speck of dust
and annihilate him, just like his own mind that he
believed to be about to kill him as it constantly
filled him with lurking loneliness and yearning robust,

making him cling to the notion that something outside
of him may fix him. In hindsight, that was a mistake.
Which led him to ask if any of us know we make
mistakes while we’re making them and if we would avoid

making them, perhaps, had we known so. He also asked
a lot of other questions, like why was it so hard
to live his life rightly, mainly when he did regard
that his fellows and people around him, in contrast

to him, were seemingly doing it so easily.
He wondered why his road’d been racked with difficulty,
why he wrestled so hard with life, why reality
had been an acquired taste that he’d so futilely

been trying to acquire all his life. And that’s why
he made the choice to live in his head, not his heart,
thinking it was safer — that, setting feelings apart,
he would never be broken there. What a stupid lie!

He hated mainly two things about his life the most:
how things were and change. He knew something had to change but
was always too scared to do anything about that.
Instead, to distract himself from all his troubles past,

he chose to focus rather on work, believing that
embracing such effort was the only hope for him,
just to realise it was harder than it did seem.
It proved one of those things that maybe look easy but

are actually incredibly difficult, just like
having a real conversation with some specific
human beings. Some may find reading this horrific.
But aren’t we all, to some extent, feeling just like

Matthew Perry occasionally? I know I do.
I too find it difficult to connect with people
while others do it so easily, for example.
And I prefer to live in my head (and my books) too.

I crave love and dread I would be abandoned again
if I show people my true, desperate self. And I have
the same intrusive thoughts about how I don’t deserve
to be loved and happy, my mind being my own bane.

Aren’t we all a little bit like him — always trying
to run away from ourselves while hoping to fill
the void inside of us and give our lives some thrill
with a ton of activities? I have always been

burrowing myself in books and (school) work or dabbling
in all sorts of hobbies — from trying to learn to play
a piano, skating, poems writing, all the way
to video making, ceramics and modelling,

organising uni events, and lately also
gym and acrobatics — only to stop my thoughts from
all the time running to, as well as distract me from
missing you, my latest and unattainable beau.

And what about you, dear? I see you likewise plunging
from one activity to another — from running,
cycling, skiing, hiking, tennis playing, to brewing
coffee, visiting coffee shops, participating

at workshops organised there all around the country,
nearly every week at another place, the further
apart from the last place it is, surely the better.
Literally always on the go, needfully free,

mostly for business, reportedly, almost living
in your car now. But what for? Have you ever questioned
yourself about it? And if so, then what have you found
the answer to be — if you’re honestly answering?

The answer to the same question about me is you.
And I can’t but feel for you because you seem to be
as lost a soul as I am. But in contrast to me,
you’re still capable to dream big, you seemingly do.

Aren’t we all but lost souls, trying to make sense of
the world and our lives in it? And so I do pray
that at least you may find peace of mind and soul some day,
if I never do, since I think it’s tied to your love.

And, by the way, I have to tell you, my darling dear,
you kind of even look like Chandler in season three
a little bit now that you are sporting the goatee.
Just hope you don’t feel like Matt when he was so doing.