Something about a city at midnight, concrete and full, lights speaking between the cracks
our feet do miss; here, January 1, 2012, hand raised for a cab, unaware and unprepared
for what is waiting:
How I could sit with her across from me, a bag behind her and full of something and my eye
is crawling over it–it’s a deterrent, a challenge, a mistake–as she tells me that she
still has feelings for her ex, as her hand touches my knee, her elbow on the false
marble countertop, her eyes are the only thing breathing;
stumbling into the door–did it crack?–and pulling her to me, giggling, but feeling
in control, her legs wrapping around me and pushing down on my cock–pressure, almost
pressure–and my left hand feels the dips and lines of the door and I am lost in here, stumbling into
the room, lost and cancerous, falling back on the bed, the mattress moves as we move;
and press repeat and tip up another drink and hail a cab and explore her body in the back
and mumble and hear her say “I bet you are very excited” and not realizing–never realizing–
the hate this will engender, the absolute fear of being so flippant with my skin, the fully
suffocating next day, the way light seems to pick the rooms it will grace;
and June came like the highway through these memories–free and winding; perceptive and freeing;
constant and divergent–the highway to ride through, she letting her guard down once, leaning
back on the bed, rushed and tangled, grasping my head like a painting of midnight, how empty
we must have seemed, how empty and reaching;
watching the tree above, three AM, July moon trying to force its wings to fit between the
branches and leaves, falling and flying, rushing across my cheek and then her cheek, the
miserable line between night and hope, constructed first when our fingers locked pulling with it
grass and soil, coming together like a blade in that moonlight, tearing and lampooning our
own needs until finally, there was silence;
becoming more comfortable with my own need for intimacy on selfish terms, December and
deceptively warm, walking these same streets, finding and avoiding these same cracks, wondering
at the marvel of it all, both taut and miserly, the boy next door navigating
post moral america, learning nothing about this loss except that it is loss and has no
other meaning or surface.