Blog

Do you know tonight that JT has been here? I saw that you called earlier. We’ve been doing the thing that we do… out with family, beautiful family, and children. You knew me when his father died. Still as close as I’ve ever come. I guess it will all come to haunt me one day. I think I know god these days, but I am not sure that he has prepared me for that yet.
Do you also know that the nights we spent in this bed, we became locked in rhythm? That’s a funny word. Doesn’t even look right on paper. I could feel your heart beat through your back as I clenched you tightly, and you held me so close. Our hearts beat as one for a while there. I kissed your bare back, and would.
J and I stared at a picture of you in Helen today. I know that was a disaster weekend, but you were so beautiful. We were trying to keep something alive amidst a sense of death. I loved you then as much as ever. I wish we cold have just simply slept together. That I could have simply felt your heart exploding through your spine and back, and into my heart, like I always thought you intended it to. Know that I have always loved you the most. Know that you taught me what it is to feel that. Know that your face turned my heart totally.
You have power that I love, and embrace.
I hear morning birds singing… for me, and for you.
I love you so much, G.

There’s a pregnant commercial on the TV and the woman is scooping ice cream or yogurt or something off of her stomach as she laughs. You would be so beautiful in that state. This is surely silly.
Love you,
B

If you could only hear it through my ears, it would make the world seem right. Like you hear with me last night. I guess I convinced myself for a while that nothing had changed. That you were here and cleaning and I wanted to help, and did to the extent that was permissible. I don’t know, G. It was only awkward that you had to leave and that I could not hold you in that bed for the night. No naughtiness, just a tight slumber embrace. Just to feel you close to me. Just close to me. There’s one thing I want to say, so I’ll be brave, you gave you what you wanted, I gave what I gave, I’m not sorry I met you, I AM sorry it’s over, I’m not sorry there’s nothing to say…. so there’s nothing to say.

I am up tonight and you don’t know why, and I am up and it does not matter and I wish that you were asleep or ready to be so, or waiting up in that room for me. You are so small, but this me, whose experience has been like wrestling a much larger creature. Rilke says the only way that we grow is by being beaten time, and time again, by a much larger opponent. Maybe that is God, or it is ourselves. I don’t know, G. I just know I miss you in my life on this night, like on so many others. You only knew me and your sister in this town for so long, and I know more, but it is almost like I only know you.
I hate that pillow now. Your hips and warmth are the only thing that can suffice at these late stages.
I don’t have to have you. I want to have you. I don’t have to love God, I just do. I don’t need you, baby. I want you. Did you hear that? I want you. I don’t know when you will receive this. I don’t know how you will feel about it.
Know that I have never been full of shit. Know that it always sounds. It, with a clapper- maybe you as the clapper, that has broken this bell, and you as the clapper that can provide the healing salve.
I kind of hope you never read this. But why will I not remove it?
You were/are everything that this boy could ever want.
I love you, G.

I write this from the bedroom, just seconds after I walked down the hallway to put myself away for the night. The ghost of you walked ahead of me tonight for the first time in months. I have gotten used to this existence alone. Only occasionally do you creep back in. Not that I don’t miss you. Oh, I do constantly. It’s just that there are fewer times now where the there is a physicality like there is tonight. Maybe it is because there is no you at the other end of the street tonight. Even though I know it isn’t true, I have always felt that if I got far enough down, I could call and you would hold me for a night.
I feel like I play games now. That I try to approximate you really being in my life again. I hold a pillow. I hold my breath. I ask God to bring you back, even though I know I should not ask for these things from Him. I should ask Him for what’s best for me, for you, for us all.
The night before we broke up I asked you would you stay here again with me before I left this house of ours. You said you would. I realize why you haven’t been able to keep that vow. I understand things were all confused. I understand that you probably really wanted to, at least on a level.
This is not our bed anymore. It is just mine. I like it that way on some level. I still do dream of waking with you beside me on a Saturday though – you sleeping late. I dream of a trip to the bookstore before you awake. Maybe a long walk before as well. Cold cuts and toasted sandwiches from a much-thought-over-before-purchased toaster oven. You like turkey, I know, with a little bit of lettuce, vinegar and spices. How does breakfast in bed sound? And a foot rub before that morning? And after? And every night, just to keep us regular? And a return to a good love? Maybe one that could last this time?

Tonight you write asking, “Scrabble?,” and I do not know what it is. Are you wanting to play? I hope that is what it was. I wish I had been there to say yes, please come over. Let’s sit by this fire here that I now have lit, smoke cigarettes, play that game – kiss perhaps, sleep in that room together again. Oh, how warm you always were; a siren calling me to bed before my rhythm would bring me there. It is all loneliness here on this day that began with morning storms. Apparently we didn’t perish. We are still here.
I did see you and your mother drive pst the house today. And then, I saw you drive back past. The honk of a horn. The wishing that you would stop. That I could see you. That I could see your mother. That she would give me a hug. That I could spend time with you now before you go away for a week.
I have become accustomed, once again, to seeing you regularly, and although the rules of engagement have changed now, I still will miss you. It is odd that I went so long without seeing you and learned to live in that way, but now I cannot believe that I was able to do that. I know I can do it again if I have to, but it is so much nicer that you are back in my life. You are all I ever wanted. That’s the truth.
Last night, folding clothes in that room over there, was like a dream. After you left here, I washed clothes and cried. I folded them and remembered standing by the bed with you folding, and perhaps me helping to fold the clothes. I guess I realize now that we were just playing ‘house.’ I guess that we were pretending we were married, and we never should have done that. Maybe if we hadn’t pretended to be, we could be now. Maybe we could have been happy together. I realize that this is all silly speculation, but I like to believe that it could have been.
I have written of giving up on the talismans that I surrounded myself with after we fell apart. Occasionally I still like getting parking space 291, because that was where I was parked the first time we really talked after the breakup. Occasionally I still see if the elevator comes before the ten count. Occasionally I see if my combination of word games add up to my secret 5, because that means everything will be okay – you will love me again. Most of this is just habit now. I realize the false-godness of it all.
I still have kept one talisman though. After you left, I started collecting those quarters that I showed you last night. I should not have showed you them. I convinced myself that you would come back when I had 10 of them collected, all SC quarters. You finally made me love your state.
At first the quarters came quickly, and by the time Christmas rolled around, I had 6 already and it seemed that your return was imminent. Then the collecting slowed. When Tom and I would go play pool at the Highlander, I would change a five and look at each of the quarters individually. Week after week nothing turned up.
Last week, after we had been seeing each other again – hugging, laughing, crying – kissing on the cheek after an awkward approach to the face. I think we both think of kissing for real on those approaches; it only seems natural, but also foreign now.
I don’t know what to do with the coins now, so I guess I will leave them on the dresser. I think I will leave them there for awhile. Maybe soon I will have to leave this house. If I do I will hide the coins well somewhere where they will not me found – maybe in the closet that housed the monster that could attack you as you slept had you not checked it nightly while you were here. I will give the money to the monster. I will pay it for not attacking you, or us, but instead letting our own monsters eat is up. Now that we are exorcising those monsters, maybe our hearts will heal, and find a way to bring us together again.