At a truck stop in New Jersey where you can't pump your own gas, I walk the dog and he pays the attendant, and I think, this is where I belong. Every move he makes, every word he speaks, every smile he sends my way and I fall deeper. I remember why I could never really let him go. How I looked for him in every man - boy - I was with. I could not deny who I wanted and tried to replace him. I told him this. He looked for my opposite. He tried to erase me. But couldn't. Had me in his mind. And tried to push me away.
But that's our difference. I confront, he retreats. It's why we fell apart to begin with.
But he's faced the dark in him now. We stood in the field he nearly killed himself in. We rode at break-neck speed on a snowmobile over the patch of land he brought a shotgun to. And it was the first time he'd been since.
I'm his girl again, I've really always been his girl. The other boys, no matter how I loved them, were cheap replacements. Whispered words in the dark between Tristan and I, and I tell him: I've loved others, but not the way I've loved you. And he says, but it's not the same. Never the same.
Never been the same.
*
NEW ORLEANS
*
April, and the sun is barely showing his face. Grim and dark and cloudy, I can't take much more of this. The demons swirl about enough when I feel my skin crackle and tan with my feet in the waves.
Finally, after two years of promising, I go to Vermont to visit Ariadne, see her tiny little quiet town on the White River. We help clean it up all Saturday morning, head to a bar and have a little heart to heart with J--- about how much he loves her. And fears losing her. Day drinking turns into happy hour into plan old drinking, her friends filling her apartment to the brim, C--- and I co-cooking some kind of Indian flavored meal for the swarm. It's a swirl of drunken meetings, good music, good beer. I feel happy, I feel light, I am so unbelievably drunk that I can't fathom how I haven't blacked out.
But that's our difference. I confront, he retreats. It's why we fell apart to begin with.
But he's faced the dark in him now. We stood in the field he nearly killed himself in. We rode at break-neck speed on a snowmobile over the patch of land he brought a shotgun to. And it was the first time he'd been since.
I'm his girl again, I've really always been his girl. The other boys, no matter how I loved them, were cheap replacements. Whispered words in the dark between Tristan and I, and I tell him: I've loved others, but not the way I've loved you. And he says, but it's not the same. Never the same.
Never been the same.
*
NEW ORLEANS
*
April, and the sun is barely showing his face. Grim and dark and cloudy, I can't take much more of this. The demons swirl about enough when I feel my skin crackle and tan with my feet in the waves.
Finally, after two years of promising, I go to Vermont to visit Ariadne, see her tiny little quiet town on the White River. We help clean it up all Saturday morning, head to a bar and have a little heart to heart with J--- about how much he loves her. And fears losing her. Day drinking turns into happy hour into plan old drinking, her friends filling her apartment to the brim, C--- and I co-cooking some kind of Indian flavored meal for the swarm. It's a swirl of drunken meetings, good music, good beer. I feel happy, I feel light, I am so unbelievably drunk that I can't fathom how I haven't blacked out.
