the · deus · ex · machina · has · failed · to · eject

My best friend is a boy who I met on livejournal and have yet to meet in person. I hate confessing this; it makes me feel very nerdy, and I must hasten to add that I do in fact have a real life and many real life friends. I have never tried very hard to live via the internet, with the exception of some blogging, and so having a good internet friend is an entirely new and surprisingly exciting experience.

I first discovered him one night while browsing random recent livejournal posts. His journal immediately stood out to me for several reasons. The first was that he had very few livejournal friends- only two- and so it seemed that he was writing mostly for himself, rather than an audience. There is something wonderful, I think, about people who write just for the sake of writing. The second thing that stood out to me was that his writing was very very good. It was funny, insightful, and at times, breathtakingly poetic. I fell in love with him that night while reading his journal. I truly mean that. I thought to myself, I do not care what he looks like or sounds like or how old he is or young he is or where he lives, I am in love with him because he seems to understand life and beauty and language in a way that few people do.

I emailed him. He emailed me back. I learned, through a series of emails, that he was twenty years old, a college dropout, a freelance journalist for indie magazines, and an aspiring actor yearning to leave his hometown for the sunny shores of California. He was also very interested in learning about me, and we soon were divulging all sorts of life-stories to each other.

Nearly a year later, we are still in contact. We write to each other almost every day. I think that he has fallen in love with me as much as I have fallen in love with him. This is not something we talk about; we both have real-life lovers, and more often discuss the ups and downs in our "real" relationships, those which are with people who do not live thousands of miles away. Still, I know that someday we'll finally meet and we'll get along with each other amazingly. I am sure of it.

I have an imaginary friend. His name is Elijah. He is tall and thin, with dark hair and dark eyes and fair skin and thin lips and melodic voice. I created him to fit with some idea of beauty which I held when I was thirteen or fourteen, this being the age when I forced him into existence by way of writing him into a story. He was only ever meant to be a character in this story, but as the story stagnated, I would, for the sake of inspiration, plant him in scenes in my head, trying to gauge how he would really act, and what to make him do next in the story, and what things could possibly unfold if he were to commit different acts. In this way he became a very definite presence in my mind, for I had run so many scenes that I knew him intimately, knew the nuances of his voice and smell of his skin and way that he moved. I ceased to add to his personality because it had become very complete. I can hold conversations with him now, letting only the whims of my subconscious dictate his words, and more often than not he plays the voice of reason in my internal conflicts. I come to him crying (my boy is being a douchebag, Elijah! my cat died, Elijah! I lost my job, Elijah!) and he tells me to calm down, that he still cares for me even if no one else seems to. The beautiful part of this is that he is ME. If he says he loves me, then it is really me telling myself that I do not hate myself so much as I think. Even when I am at my worst, I can always close my eyes and let Elijah lead me to nicer places.

When I was in elementary school I had a pair of pet birds. I kept them in a small cage which I rarely cleaned and which gave them space to fly only a foot in any direction. I was not a dutiful pet-owner. This is not to say that I didn't care about my birds, but I was often too lazy to let my limited amount of concern move me to do things which they required. I sometimes forgot to feed them. Other times I ignored obvious signs of their distress, and, eventually, one bird pecked the other to death. At that point I gave the remaining bird away to a family friend and determined that birds were a hassle and that I never wanted to keep them again.

It took some time for the guilt to set in, but once it did it never ceased to bother me. It feels awful to know that I caused another creature to live a miserable life. It is one thing to have hurt an animal; it is another to have taken the entire life of an animal and ruined it. My birds were malnourished. They were malcontent. They were probably in pain, too, as their unfortunate situation made them more and more irritable and caused them to get in fights. I never gave them any medical attention when they needed it. They spent almost the entirety of their life in this condition. I don't think I will ever be able to forgive myself for my negligence.

What I feel the worst about is that I kept them in so small a cage for such a long time. I do not believe anymore that it is right to cage birds. To keep them in captivity is not a sin, but to put them in a place where they cannot exercise their wings seems wrong. Birds are meant to fly...