As we laid in bed
I pulled you closer and guided your arms around my body
for you to hold me like you once did before.
You didn’t resist but I could feel that the warmth between us,
that deep connection where our hearts beat together
had long since left.
In that moment I became desperate for you again.
I went to the bathroom and peed,
there were clothes all over the floor
and a spider tried to spindle its web in my hair
to which I had a fierce panic attack
especially when I saw the spider after frantically trying to dust it out of my hair
and off of me.
I returned to the bed and the other guy had left
so it was just me and you
and I took my shirt off and you laughed at how hard my ******* were and tweaked one of them.
I asked if you had plans for the day and you said no
and I said I wanted to spend time with you
because it was a nice day out
and you agreed
and I said that I wanted to talk
to which once again you seemed open to but less than interested in and I found myself back-peddling as to not frighten you away
but I knew that it was too late
and i could feel you realize that whatever hopes that you had of us being just friends
had turned into something you had to protect yourself from.
I slid over on top of you to get close and to smell you again
and you pushed me off
and I rolled off the side of the bed
onto the floor and laid there, cartoonishly, unable to move,
paralyzed in knowing that I would never be able to get close to you again
and I woke up thinking about how much
I love you.

You looked so dead
as you sat there staring at me and as i sat there staring back at you through red stained eyes
and wet cheeks
and a lip that I could not control.
As I just sat and sat
and sat after telling you how
I loved you
and all I wanted to do was make you
happy for the rest of my life
you just looked at me
like I was some inconvenience in your good time.
You yourself for a moment held back tears
I could see them.
Your jaw tense and your eyes hollow but filled with resentment.
I was a flat tire - a stalled vehicle on the highway of your life
your summer of love and *** and drugs and cigarettes and *****
and Europe
and here I was pouring my soul out onto the grass in front of you on the banks of the Seine and you sat there
silently
sipping your rosé as if I was the fly that had landed in it.
You were horrible
it was horrible
and I had emptied my heart in front of you like I never had before with anyone
especially you
and you told me that as well,
that this was all that you wanted to hear when we were together
and now the time came where I was saying it
and it was too late for some reason
because you had done whatever you had to do to get over me
and now it was my time
and how unfortunate for you that you had to endure it alongside me. But you didn’t endure it.
You turned your face away from me as I wept
and said you’d rather get drunk instead of hold my hand
and when we left I walked alone
behind you along the river
and watched your shadow fade away against the coming twilight
and the backdrop of the city
and my world fell apart.
I’ll never forget that night in Paris.
It was my 35th birthday.

A subtle sweetness I can taste in the back of my throat
and I smile.
The music lifts me off of the ground
and I feel overtaken by its rhythmic pulse which makes me happy and there is no other place I would rather be
than in the arms of you
again.

The clouds around me gather
as I collect my thoughts about what I think is real or not.
The fear takes over in the blue sky of my mind
and my heart sinks deeply into the abyss of my chest
and I wonder how many lives have you had before we met
and how many lives will you have after me.
The ocean of my heart is deep and waning
and I have no way to navigate it without
the ideas of what I think I know already
and it is of no help because
without the smell of you I have no way to remember
if you were real.
Sometimes I sit here confused
and strained
and all I want is to have a cigarette like someone who has a real thought would need to compose their real thoughts
and look smart about it but but but but..
disappointment surges in again
and again like a cruel joke
and it makes me wonder if the decisions I make about my life
and the choices I choose are really the ones that I need
when clearly they aren’t.
You were a choice as well.
Every conversation was a choice
and you also were a casualty.
We were a casualty
and I let us die
foolishly.

I saw your face
sitting at the table at the far side of the crowd of people
and when I did see you and saw you stand up,
your hair long and shaved short on the sides,
I knew that you were in the middle of discovering yourself.
You worked at the hotel now
and had a large key ring around the belt loop of your dark skinny jeans.
I eyed you for the rest of the night keeping tabs on where you were and who you were with and then suddenly there you were behind me and I pretended not to notice until you tapped me on the shoulder and, rather friendly, say ‘hey’.

I hold on tightly to life as it teaches me the lessons of time.
I never ever want to learn those lessons but when I do I only learn them once
and I was determined to learn this lesson more than the others.
But it was too late
the lesson was complete
and there was nothing more to learn.

I don’t remember much in between
but I do remember
we ended up in bed together laying there with our clothes on
with another guy.
You had told me earlier
with him standing right there
what you did together.
And you grabbed his **** underneath his shorts to show it off.
I played along
with feigned interest
but at that point I remember the pit in my stomach returning
when I thought of someone else had had you
which I knew, of course,
but to hear it described and to see it
gives it a life of its own
and becomes certain
and those times where it is so real
and you are so open about it
as if you either don’t know the pain that it causes me
or you don’t care
are marked as the saddest points in my life.

In matters of love you will die.
It will **** you in the end,
I assure you.
There is no worse feeling than the loss of something so important to you that your entire life fell apart in its
absence.
I think to myself how complete I must be because I no longer cry when I think about you
but in those moments those thoughts take me to another place, and I start to fall In love with you
all over again.
I lose my head inside of my heart and
I cannot think of anything rational.
I only think of you.
And I want you to know that it is those
thoughts of you
that let me know
I am alive.