10. very nearly our year. but not quite.

it’s odd to think i’ll be leaving this year behind so soon. it was a year of growth, of pain and happiness and love. i almost want to do a flashback to all the key moments of the last year, to relive them again, to go back and breathe the fresh air of the park in the summer, when me and Y laid there looking at the clouds.

i want to go back to the valentines day that was a bit of failure, but still beautiful in its simplicity. to relive the moment when one man asked me and Y “are you two together” and how i flashed him my most striking smile and, laughing ever so slightly, said “kind of”. it was so complicated and simple. but that was then.

i want to go back to the phonecalls me and Y would have. maybe that record 3 hour 22 minute conversation when we first said that we loved each other. we didn’t mean it, not then, but it was a magnificent moment still. i don’t know if that was this year or last, but hey, it’s there somewhere. it’s in the memories attributed to Y and this was his and my year. very nearly our year. but not quite.

you know, boy, me and Y had spent so much time hiding. there was one time in the park when we saw someone we knew and we immediately split up, trying to act casual, not managing, but still getting away unseen by him.
or that time when everyone kept asking us if we were together and i, twiddling the ring he gave me, laughingly told them that no, we were not going out. and we weren’t.

a little way into our friendship, that was closer than platonic friendship could ever be, i told Y not to ever ask me out, not to ever put me into position of having to refuse him.
i wouldn’t change that if i could. it wasn’t that i wasn’t ready to commit, i just wasn’t ready to commit to him.

and now this year is nearly over, i recount those memories and love them.
love them because they bring me happiness in knowing that there was a time i loved, and in knowing that, i know i’ll love again.

—————————————————

cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet
‘Let those love now, who’ve never loved; let those who’ve loved, love yet again.’

9. why would he do that?

Z is even worse than i remembered him. inarticulate responses, vacant stare in only one direction, spotty complection, virtually no manners. an almost typical geeky C-grade student.

not my type.

i like the big grins, the flourishing resoponses embellished with sarcasm, the gentlemen that can tell me a thing or two about the world, that can discuss the politics, laughingly, quoting the newspapers, maybe, or politicians. i like the guys who smell of aftershave so strong you can sense it from a distance, whose playfully open top button reveals a glint of collarbone. i like them like you and X and Y and yet like none of you.

but Z – no.

and yet it was interesting today. maybe for that exact reason, it was a real discovery of myself, of him, of how far i’ve moved on in the short space of time i’ve not seen him.
i used to be indifferent, now i was repelled.
i was appalled at how my playful reminder of today’s meeting was responded to in such a brief and abrupt manner that i almost wondered if it was a burden to him, but the spelling mistake reminded me of what sort of person i was dealing with and i knew it was just his carelessness.
 i haven’t forgotton
you’d do so much better than that. as would X or even Y, who isn’t even really mine.

talking of Y, it was quite strange tonight to recieve a text from him, few minutes before midnight, telling me, almost lovingly, to have sweet dreams. mixed signals or am i just seeing things? i double checked, you know, to see if it really was from him. it was the sort of text that X would send and i thought that maybe in my sleepy state i replaced one name with another, confused myself.

but no, it was Y’s name above the message in morning.
it was his name even in the afternoon.
it’s his name still even now.

now tell me, why would he do that?

8. what if i was to say i like crashing cars?

today was good, no matter the weather, which seemed to personify you, be you:
it was a rainy day. the sort of gloomy day one might transpire if they wished to ruin someone’s plans.
because plans are fragile. like faberge eggs – one gentle tap and they may fall to the ground, all the hard work, the beauty instilled within obliterated.

but no, that’s unfair:
you wouldn’t wish me to mourn your temporary passing, sitting at home miserably sipping tea, earl grey, no less. you wouldn’t want me staring blankly out of the window, all day, as if my sole look outside will make you come back. no. you’d rather i mourned your going away in a manner that made it seem i was glad you went.
that way, you wouldn’t have to feel guily.

so, yes, it was raining. not just drizzling, no. a downpour from the skies, like someone running a tap up there, the water coming down in huge fat drops, not dissimilar to leeches overgorged on blood.

i despaired.

i thought that ice-skating was a gone thing. thankfully, X wouldn’t give up. no. he changed our plans to accomodate the weather:
we went ice-skating still, just in a contained space, so that there was no rain to stop us. so that both of us could still do what we had originally planned. it was beautiful. really lovely. maybe not as idyllic as i would have liked, but hey… it was good. can’t complain, right?

somehow, i’m not sure what it is that i want any more. i thought i did, but that was time ago now. the plan was to drop him and be with you. i was going to give up on the crashing car, as you reffer to him. i was going to give you the chance you deserve.

but boy, what if i can’t do that any more?
what if i was to say that i like crashing cars?

a storm somewhere on the brink of infinity…

a storm somewhere on the brink of infinity
where love is sand, blasting against the face,
a passionate embrace of the grains with the skin,
swirling together in holy matrimony, blood – communion wine,
falling down like sweet tears, blind rain.

water washed away by water
as the tide comes in and out,
each wave a new beginning,
a silent  backlash
against everything that ever was.  

—

and sometimes prose isn’t enough to describe all i feel, sometimes every story must have a little bit of a mystery to it, an excerpt, an addition to it.
i won’t explain why it is here, why it was not published yesterday or how it relates. it is the little mystery you shall have to work out for yourselves. 

but if all else fails, just take it as a poem, because that’s all it ultimately is.
a poem in a sea of prose.   

 

7. if only for a little while

i wonder if i’ve gone crazy in the last couple of months, assuming that everyone but me is wrong, at least a little wrong in their perception of life. maybe it was i who was wrong, who pushed people to the brink, making them close up like a venus trap. then again, maybe it was them. hey, who knows. all i know is, things seem so much different these days.

take X for example.

called him today – we’re going ice-skating tomorrow you see. i wasn’t going to mourn your going away by sitting at home thinking of how much fun you must be having listening to all those people talking in a language so much more fluid than mine, with much sexier accents than mine, their much sharper features than mine making you fall in love with them.

so yes, as i was saying… i called him up just now, a little while ago. we have just finished the conversation in fact. didn’t expect much from that phone call really. you know how it is – no substance, pauses stretching into what seems like eternity, that sort of stuff. but that wasn’t it. that wasn’t it at all. he talked so well, so freely, as if he wasn’t the boy i used to know at all. as if he wasn’t the reason i turned to you for conversation and understanding in the first place. as if he changed. as if i changed him. 

it’s strange, you know, i can almost picture a happy ending with him.
not quite bliss, but something close.
mutual awareness of the world around us.
yes, i can see it all – the galleries, the parties, even the nights in. i couldn’t see that there before. maybe because i didn’t believe.
but what changed?

so we talked for an hour, me and him. it wasn’t forced as usual, it wasn’t difficult on either party. it was comforting. 
with you gone, if only for a little while, i know i can now put the effort into me and him. there were times i thought i could avoid it. there were times i resented him for even being there, but he cares. as do you of course, but you won’t be there, so your eyes won’t have to witness my betrayal.

enjoy your trip to france, boy.

au revoir!
if only for a little while