nov 20, 2007

My phone said 7:20pm when he turned around to walk away. I stood motionless on the sidewalk on Judah and 23rd, take out dinner in one hand, phone in the other stuffed into my left pocket. The air wasn't especially different, but clung to it was a balmy staleness. The moon was out, a waning quarter, hung loosely by the western night sky as if to half-heartedly acknowledge my presence. I wanted to shout his name, or run over to him, or make a scene of it. But it wouldn't solve anything but make things worse than it already was. Two muni streetcars had passed by, and I hadn't moved an inch, just staring at the intersection he'd crossed and the empty space he'd occupied just moments before. Watching him walk away I wanted to cry, but nothing would come. Like an empty spray bottle you keep trying to squeeze out, but only hear the hiss of aerosol with no substance. It isn't that I wasn't sad, it was just that something inside me had been activated, and something stowed away. Our internal mechanisms are astounding. My feet felt light, my mind afloat. I heard nothing, saw nothing, and felt a softness overcome my entire being. I thought, "If I just stand here forever, I wonder if he'll come back to me." If I just stand and wait, people will eventually take notice, and those who care will make a fuss of it. I'll get on the news for being the heartbroken boy that stood waiting for his love to return. I'll piss in my pants from days or waiting, eyes sunken, shoulders slouched, and a crowd of people would surround me encouraging me or criticizing me. I'd be on the verge of death from fatigue, and I would ignore their pleas because my stubbornness makes me brave. And my image on the television would shock him while he ate his noodles for dinner and be forced to abandon his meal to come save me from self-destruction. He'll take me into his arms and finally realize how sorry I was, how much I wanted him back, how dedicated I was to him, that he'd profusely apologize for punishing me the way he did. And the crowd would cheer and laugh and cry and nod in silence at how majestic love can be. He'd whisk me back to his apartment, make me a meal while I showered, and after dinner we'd make passionate gentle love people call 'makeup sex'. We would cuddle like the way we used to and whisper to each other sweet nothings, and fall asleep in each others' arms. Another muni streetcar passed. My feet started to ache, my knees gave way, my breath grew shallow, and my hunger beckoned from below. My darkest hour.

A certain calm drowned out all the cries in my mind, a dichotomy ready to tear me to shreds. My limbs came to and found new movement, foreign and awkward. I floated on down the street and kept walking until a streetcar came. My reflection staring back at me from the interior window of the muni seemed loose and frayed at the edges as if it were beginning to become unhinged from me. Reflections are different from shadows because you can lie to your reflection and it can lie to you, but shadows just follow and they listen and know the truth.

I fell to my knees when I got into my apartment when the levies finally broke.