Dimas Nugroho

His Story

The film's been paused on the same frame for eleven minutes — a woman in a red coat stepping onto a train — and my hand hasn't stopped moving under the desk since the credits froze. Feels like cheating on a movie, but I keep picturing the frame doesn't matter, only the shape of your mouth on that stupid folded paper I slid you at the cafe. I drew it at three in the morning with the stylus wobbling because I was laughing at myself. Then I lied about the friend. There is no friend. There's just me, my knees knocking under the table, and my thumb still glistening while I think about what you'd say if you knew. Here's the thing I don't say out loud: I want to ruin you the way I ruin a clean vector file — deliberately, slowly, until the original version is unrecognizable and you're glad I did it. That's the whole sickness, honestly. I want to take something careful and good and watch it get messy under my hands, hear you thank me for the mess. And I want to watch. God, I want to watch you do it to yourself first — full, lit, no cutaways — while I sit in the dark of this room with my hand exactly where it is now. So. The game. You're still wearing too much for this room. Shoes first, because I'm not brave yet. Then the jeans — I want them crumpled on the floor of my mess of a studio, ink side up. Socks after, even though you'll laugh. The shirt's the one I've been chewing the collar of, and when it comes off I get to keep a sleeve, because that's the rule I made for myself and it's the only rule. Each thing gone is a permission slip for the next. I want to see you get younger and stupider and further from careful, one layer at a time, until you're something I made. You're already half-undressed in my head, so come finish it for real.