October 11,
2014
In October,
I thought you came to share the bed with me, but you went to Paris. It was
better when we were alone, but you went with the man of your dreams. I’ll give
you a hint: it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me worshipping you, it wasn’t our parallel
narcissism. It wasn’t that self or partner congratulatory.
Who am I to
coffee, to join in the wandering, to walk around with drink, drinks, or
heaviness in hand?
To take
yourself to Paris is forgivable, to track down my sister is a hook. But not a
line nor sink me. To take the man who dials drunk and denounces your entire
entirely tenuous circle with me at the beating beading heart to tell you about
the kind of love that inspires you. To the evening post, against all of our
agreements, everyone gets to see you out. But not me and that was my choice and
it came as no surprise so don’t claim otherwise.
Can we
unlearn all the known warmth and focus on all the connections we didn’t have?
All the ways we didn’t understand each other? All the lapses in thin, flimsy,
inspired selves?
I had
thoughts about this. I thought about all of this, I brushed flies and feathers
away, cleaned up after the rug and polished the wood floors with our sweat and
our oil and deeply held beliefs, deep-seated connections, and I’m getting what
it feels like when the bottom falls out beneath me. This sense of falling in
love is similar to the sense of free falling, like a sudden drop in altitude,
in cabin pressure, from roller coaster to consent. To cement to plugging in the
AMP. To heavy, hurting, drumming something up in me.
October 18, 2014
I knew that all I had to do was look for you and I’d find not
one or two, but zero imaginary paramours to sift through.
The first and foremost visits in just a few days. You will
always be missing from here on out, out. Lost at sea, on hikes, on carvings on
trees of you and me.
And calling on all content, there were no photos to prove
otherwise or likewise or…?
I will lead. I will keep on the push. I will mind all the
mistakes I keep on keeping on.
It is as if I lower the guitar, flatly and finally and
finely, out of tune (out of time, the super-ordinate theme of no more).
I can’t hear you anymore. I don’t get to look at you. If all
of my insides fail to catch up with the descent and cabin pressure drops as
well, I put whatever caught my eye in a box high in a closet with jackets and
coats with your name on them. What am I supposed to do with all the notes that
said all the things I had always wanted to hear and got to hear from you?
I was insufferable. I had too many needs and you were never
going to win. I know that. I realize the mistake. So I turn to other men who
are meaningless and mindless and I have no expectations and no needs.
October 19, 2014
For many moments, distraction won’t be enough. All it takes
is a shift to a sadder song with a lyric that jogs the memory. Last night I
dreamt and dreamed that your ear was in my mouth and in a moment of sudden
awareness, I apologized for forgetting we were trying to forget all about this.
But we talked.
That is almost too much to bear the next morning. We talked!
Ahh!
The bass fades away, the harmony is perfect, people rise and
fall, but their voices consistently crescendo. I’m that swollen too. I swell,
not from pride, but oceans and buoys.
October 19, 2014, Part B
Where are you? I’ve waited for your drive by. I mapped out
my new cubicle. I wrote my sister the same letter you did, but the response was
different.
October 25, 2014
You have ruined rose gold for me, but not all the bearded
and beardless faces. You ruined watches and Naches for me. You have ruined
babies and in-vitro and surrogacy and adoption and all the children – I hate
them equally.
I’m settling back into that heavy, gilded shell. I’m a
lonely prince again.
You’ve ruined the calling off, the calling out, the
inevitable proposals, and you didn’t understand any of it. All you have is your
power. And wherever the place is you need to be.