That was the day your face seared onto the inside of my eyelids. That was the day a gentle hunger stroked my belly, and that was the day where we trekked the entire length of Manhattan with Gershwin bubbling from our mouths. And that was the day I discovered the city at night in broad strokes, that was the time where my steps grew a little bit larger, where we painted the soles of our feet and colored the sidewalks our footprints dripped where the colors blend you held my hand and held your breath as you walked against the red light.

That was the summer you began the nonchalance around me and that’s when I knew our friendship was over, sailed on when the vessels in my nose broke and blood started gushing out. I was bending over the sink to catch the droplets in the water fingers poised over the bridge of my nose to stem the flow and when I called out for you, called out your name, you replied with clinical directness completely impassive and proceeded to google how to stop nosebleeds all the while chanting “nose nose nose” in a singsongy breath and that’s when I knew that the ship has sailed onto muddy waters.

Which is the dream and which is reality? For there are some images that are so beautiful I find it hard to believe I was awake and yearning

*That was the day where you reached to fix a leaf on a branch and I caught a pale sliver of flesh, that streak of white stomach, the glance down at me, the blush, the light tarnishing that yellow hair, setting my heart ablaze