85. cherry soda loves

there was a line in streetcar named desire that i remember. it said it’s touching to notice them making their first discovery of love! As if nobody had ever known it before.  it resonates, for now the time has come for the bud to be broken and flowers to bloom in the late-spring night air.

the risk is nothing. nothing, really. there are only the long sprawling afternoons this side of summer, when paper is scrunched up into tiny little balls and burnt with a magnifying glass or matches. whichever, the result is all that matters. words are nothing: this air requires action! 
and there are trees, so beautiful this time of year. they remind me of walking to school in the summer and inhaling the scent of apple tree blossom with T. those were the days, eh?

but now, no now, those buds will open and blossom will scatter into the hands of a handsome young man that we choose. for me, this sweltering summer, it’ll be you. and, god willing (an expression i borrowed from an altogether more believing friend of mine), next summer also. for T (if we were boys, she’d be a brother from another mother) it will be someone else. Her new beau (a rather lovely Tenessee expression!). her very first. amazing stength and will and beauty.

so here we are, and isn’t it queer to think we shall be here always? in the arms of another, in the throes of spring, the coming summer alighting hopes in every single one of us, as if petards were thrown at the pavement before us, at our feet, at our willing young hearts?

and we can’t help this feeling hopeful. and we can’t pretend we didn’t want this life.
so every year, like clockwork, we will be discoving those cherry soda loves and shedding blossom in each other’s arms.

51. sometimes

the world has a tendency to hit you all at once.
it leaves no time for pauses or breaks; no time for slow lives or lifeless existences.
this world you and i live in leaves us all only enough time for a sharp intake of breath before the tidal wave crashes.

but no matter the amount of sea-water in my nostrils, no matter the drenched clothes sticking to my paling torso or the panicky moment of blindness, when the eyes sting from the harsh impact, i always emerge victorious.

i sometimes think it’s because of viktor.
his name could never be changed. there is no letter in the english alphabet with which to replace it. maybe there is one in the ukrainian but that’s of no matter – no anonymity will mask his identity.
he was my first love.
no, he was an obsession.
love is something beyond that, below that, above that. he was no more than a motive, a mute name to dedicate my life to. a pause in the middle of every sentence, a stubborn glitter in the eye. you know of him. everyone always does. his name is forever embedded on my lips, like an infected tattoo.

and upon those lips, he stands victorious. for as much as his victory is on my lips, my victory is on his shoulders. i’m not scared of tornados now, nor of broken hearts. i’m not scared of storms, nor of ruptured heart strings.

he showed me that a heart can shatter without a single word and i could tell you that syllables never uttered hit harder than any word ever could, but that would be hypocrisy and i can be no hypocrite for in him is the mirage of my own bravery. 

but ask me why it matters that the tuesday past one more admirer of my flawed mirror-glass started sweeping up the pieces of his fractured self. ask me and i will tell you, for that is one thing viktor will never know.  

sometimes you must let love flow through your fingers, like molten chocolate, its slowly solidifying mass sweetsmelling on your fingers.
sometimes you must let it go, ridding your soul of the little titbits that should no longer matter – the creased used tickets from journeys long past, the old postcards from people lost somewhere in translation, the newspaper articles cut-out badly with blunt scissors stored in a soiled envelope somewhere.

yes, that sometimes is inevitable, but for me it never comes.

25. a little more single

valentine’s day tomorrow.
everyone knows that. most people care. some, like me, are a little more weary of its coming. a little more reserved. a little more single.

walking the streets today was like waking up in a foreign room. every pattern established over the duration of the year (bar Christmas time) had changed. for today only. all the world needed today was a banner screaming for one night only like those one off concerts by a renowned superstar.
illustrious illusion of love taking the world by storm:
the vendors on the streets shouting roses, not their usual bananas or tomatoes;
the music blasting from the shops a mixed array of romantic songs, every single one played to death;
and hearts, chocolates, champagne everywhere.

call me a cynic, but i just can’t stand it all. a dog should be for life not just for Christmas, so love should be for every day, not just the internationally-recognised day of coupling.

i say that but i still don’t know what real love is and noone’s in a hurry to show me.
you went off to Devon. i have to you said and i don’t doubt that you do. you ought to see your gran and if it so happens you visit overlaps with the day we should have spent together, that’s fine by me. no, honestly, it is.
it reminds me of the fact i’m free again. amen.
as to X, oh to hell with X. hot, cold, freezing, boling and then cold again. who knows that boy?
something tells me i never did.

and never will.

22. we’ll ease ourselves into the night

watching the sunset with you was like a dream come true.
and the sky was golden, the snow swirling in the clear winter air.
the snow was sparse and there was little of it, but every flake was magic, every second we stood there watching the clouds swim across the vast expanse of fiery orange was a moment to remember.

and then we parted ways.

i’ll see you again today. 
but sleep evades me and my eyes are slowly gluing together now. i would sleep if i could, but there’s never any time. ironic.
and though i didn’t spend all night wondering what it will be like with X and you there, when we go to see that play, i still didn’t sleep. and you know, it doesn’t really matter because me and X will be over.
today, if i can do it, a little later if i can’t.
and i spoke to my mother of it and she said have you talked with X properly? are you sure you want to let this one go? and i know i have. i know i do, purely because i just can’t do it any more.

i dreamt of being single for so long now and every day that brings me closer to Valentine’s day, that dream is reinforced. my friends are trying to find themselves guys before the fourteenth and here i am trying to get rid of one. how marvelously original of me.

and today will be a long day, i know.
not so much for you or X or whoever, as for me – a morning lecture nearly awaits as i sit here rubbing my bloodshot eyes.

that matters not so much.

we’ll meet up on par with the setting sun you and me watched melt to liquid gold yesterday and we’ll ease ourselves into the night.
and then – whatever will be, will be.

21. someone who i don’t want enough to love

resolution is still lost. questions posed, answers comatose.
and one question haunts me, a bat out of hell. 
why can’t i just say to X you know what, boy, it ain’t working, so lets just pretend that this never happened and walk out of each other’s lives. how bout that? 

but that’s a stupid question. and though i have to look deep inside myself for the answer, i know why.
i’m both cruel and wicked at times, and yet, my heart is not made of glass and his puppy eyes always stop me in my tracks of obliterating his dreams.

and it’s driving me crazy, this enforced entrapment by one single look. this fear of kicking to death someone who’s already down.
and i tried to say goodbye over the weekend, but he wouldn’t let me.
it’s like he sensed it coming, texting me, writing e-mails, calling persistently, telling me that we’ll get out of this rough patch and be as happy as we once were. he even got his friend to write me a message to ask me to give it one more shot. and tough i didn’t believe him that we’d be happy, because i never felt happy with him, it was too much effort to turn away and never look back. it was too much of something i didn’t have.

so, here i come, still in chains: never his, still not yours, tied by rules and conventionality to someone who i don’t want enough to love.
still a hunter, a white tigress on a prowl for her next piece of meat.

i may be wounded, but i’m not dead.