She was looking through some of my photos when she asked, “Is that the girl you like? The one on the swing?”
“Yeah”, I said. Then, “Like? Liked?”, because I wasn’t sure.
“You still like her. If you’re questioning it, that means you still do.”
Damn.
There were patches of skin on her body that would build, and turn white, and flake.
She was always self-conscious of those areas, to the point of tears, but I called them my kissing map, as each patch would lead my lips to the next. In the dark, the spots revealed themselves in their texture, like delicate wounds. How different they tasted, how strange that skin felt against my own.
I would always kiss those spots, in hopes that my lips would convince her that she had nothing to be self-conscious about around me. To ease, and share their burden.
To acknowledge that she was flawed, as we all are on earth, but I still loved and accepted her, despite it all.
On our last day together she brought me a bouquet of tulips and carnations, and a Joe Hisaishi CD — a childhood memory of mine she ordered from Japan. I had mentioned it in passing on one of our walks as the only album I’ve been unable to find for download or purchase, and there it was, in my hands.
We watched Before Sunrise, and afterward, we laid next to each other on the couch, silent, unsure of what to say, because there was no comfort to be had. Soon, I was kissing the tears from her face, over and over again.
She asked what she was going to do without me. How long it was going to be before we saw each other again. Whether a simple phone call was allowed. I could say nothing, because I understood the necessity of it all.
So she said she was being reduced to an observer, and I grew cold and distant. It was the first time I had considered my own feelings, when I had felt reduced to much more than that, and she wasn’t making it any easier. With her lips on my neck and her hand through my hair, she comforted me in turn, and our passion took hold of us one last time.
Before she left, I hugged her, felt her tears grow cold on my shoulder, and kissed her once more on the cheek. Thank you, she said.
My heart has been filled with a calm sadness ever since. A struggle between the pain of being away from her, and knowing that it’s for the best. That we would be stronger, and more stable when it was all over.
In the days since, I’ve remembered the things I wanted to say to her before she left my back porch, running to car without looking back before the emotion could overwhelm her. Things that didn’t come to my head because I was too focused on keeping myself together.
Don’t stop creating. Take care of yourself. I love you.
Sometimes, as I’m falling asleep, I think of her.
She’s lying on my stomach again, listening to my heart beat, hands tucked neatly under my body. Or she’s spooning me, her arm resting on the crook of my waist, with a finger drawing distracting circular lines on my chest.
Sometimes we’re in the tall grass, surrounded by colours of life with the warmth of the sun above us. A regression to a time when all I had to think about was the colour of popsicle I would have when I got home from camp. How unfair that our innocence is taken from us when we need it most.
And I lie there in bed, waiting for sleep to take me as the images lead me on.
My body telling me to let go, my mind struggling to keep her next to me a moment longer.
I tell her she’s beautiful. Over and over again. As often as I can.
But she shakes her head, and says I only think so because I love her.
It’s true. But would I love her any less if she didn’t have those soft, innocent eyes? If she didn’t wear her hair up, or down, or curly, or straight, or different every time I saw her? If her body didn’t curve so distractingly when she lets herself fall into me?
It makes me wonder if anyone sees the same thing that I do.
How much of it is her beauty, and how much of it is the beauty I see in her?
To me, her beauty is obvious, not subtle in any way.
So I tell her, over and over again.
Sometimes I think she’ll start to believe me if I say it enough.
And until I stop breathing, my lungs will take her for granted.
We met on the bus, side-by-side, reading books that both won Nobel Prizes.
I was supposed to meet you here three years ago, and they’re out of apple cider. The cranberry cider is tart, but only too much when you sip it so. There’s a subtly distinct taste to it, barely enough to stop me from wondering if I just paid $2.45 for warm cranberry juice. I didn’t even want this drink; I just wanted to sit down and write.
I never would have come here if you hadn’t suggested it. There are too many people. Too many going for the freshly-grounded, shade-grown, fair trade bullshit that’s been marketed to the hipsters who think they’re doing the world a favour by patronizing the right kind of places. Pretentious people who come here to read, then put their headphones on because it’s too noisy.
I don’t fit in. That’s probably a good thing.
I was supposed to meet you here three years ago, but your boyfriend got jealous and wouldn’t let you come.
We met on the bus, and I haven’t seen you since.
She is the light, I am the prism.
She is the words, I am the voice.
She is the viola string, I am the vibration.
She is the bud, I am the bloom.
She is the life, I am the living.
She is the heart, I am the pulse.
She is the medium, I am the message.
She is the water, I am the waves.
