He promised me that, Tristan at nineteen with the world in front of him. He gave me a ring and promised, promised that the next time he gave me anything like that he would be "down on one knee." Yet then he left, and I crumbled, nineteen having only been with two men - boys - he, and Seth, and Trist couldn't comprehend. Today he doesn't remember what the ring even looks like; a ruby heart he somehow recalls as my birthstone, aquamarine. Red to blue as the ocean as in my soul, and he forgets. There has been nothing in these three years that has meant more - not even his Bouncing Souls sweatshirt - sweatshit - he's had since middle school - and yet he forgets.
It's 3:43 am and I haven't spoken with Shae all day - Shae with his text messages that he believes - somehow - constitute conversation. Not a one, though last morning at 4 am I tell him I love him. Which I don't, not anymore.
I am not one for one-way street relationships. I weathered Boston to Long Island...yet somehow New Jersey to Long Island is seemingly unfathomable to him. Shae doesn't know, doesn't understand - will never. Infatuation to love is a far greater jump than those infatuated may think; he won't ever admit that he loves the IDEA of me, not me myself. How do you love someone you've known less than two years?
A basis, a friendship, that camaraderie is not something you can learn from two roommates who happened to be best friends. It comes from knowing each others, knowing the dark ugly dripping disgustingly unfaithful side of each person, that you begin to love and flourish.
Tristan calls me from way up in New York state; he tells me he can't see me all week, in so many words (again, the cliches, inescapable), because his father needs him. This, as I sit in Union Square and draw the tree on the south side of the main focus of the park - the central lawn - lifetime New Yorker, and still - Tristan disrupts the order of my thoughts and the directional functionality I still maintain.
It's 3:43 am and I haven't spoken with Shae all day - Shae with his text messages that he believes - somehow - constitute conversation. Not a one, though last morning at 4 am I tell him I love him. Which I don't, not anymore.
I am not one for one-way street relationships. I weathered Boston to Long Island...yet somehow New Jersey to Long Island is seemingly unfathomable to him. Shae doesn't know, doesn't understand - will never. Infatuation to love is a far greater jump than those infatuated may think; he won't ever admit that he loves the IDEA of me, not me myself. How do you love someone you've known less than two years?
A basis, a friendship, that camaraderie is not something you can learn from two roommates who happened to be best friends. It comes from knowing each others, knowing the dark ugly dripping disgustingly unfaithful side of each person, that you begin to love and flourish.
Tristan calls me from way up in New York state; he tells me he can't see me all week, in so many words (again, the cliches, inescapable), because his father needs him. This, as I sit in Union Square and draw the tree on the south side of the main focus of the park - the central lawn - lifetime New Yorker, and still - Tristan disrupts the order of my thoughts and the directional functionality I still maintain.
