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By coujeaux Date: 2003 Feb 08 Comment on this Work [[2003.02.08.07.45.18627]] |
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You're like me, more than you might realize. I live and work here now, with new responsiblities and a life that has changed in ways I never thought possible in a time period that still dizzies me in its brevity. I went from the carefree days we shared to this period of my existence that evolves constantly, new faces and challenges before me, and a gaping wound dead center in my chest that still oozes your name and impact. I once felt invincible and loved beyond mortal measure, your person next to me in adventures that I celebrate to counterbalance the loss that numbs me each minute of these days of resident family and long work and reorganization of my priorities. Those I love cannot understand why I still bear the torch for what once was and never will be again, but if they had loved you as I, then it would crystallize instantly to them. I cannot compare what I felt and will always feel for you to their own loves or the adorations of others, for each person burns with a different glow, but if anyone ever touched an energy like ours, they know of what I speak and what they would give to know it again, even for the most fleeting of instants. It was the last moment in the airport before I left, the time of recovery from your addiction, the vicious battles of those nine days, and the endless reasons why nothing was sufficient to move us beyond how far we had come together. It was knowing your inability to hold onto the things you treasure, including me, and the curse of your world that everything blessed to you became poisoned by requirements and necessities. So we were careful to make our time as simple and uncomplicated as possible, stripping away drama and schedules, demands and decisions. We partied, made love, hung out together, saw a movie, had dinner, played miniature golf and took weekend trips together, free to roam to other arms if desired, allowing friends to come first and never once getting angry about the other having more important things to do. Perfect for two wayward and stubborn souls angry at the complex fools we had once dated and adamant that we'd never let another psychotic share our beds or overwhelm our senses. And it worked until we each uttered those words to one another that night at Fratelli's, realizing we were in for it now, knowing our past, and not caring one iota about the implications of the way we felt so much as what it meant for our future together. Oh, love wasn't the problem-we both were determined to get out of San Antonio. But not together, because that forced us to grow up again and be accountable to one another, which was too much to ask. So I left for Dallas and you for Florida, sharing that terrible weekend I moved and my birthday together, generating harder memories than the laughs that once came so easily. Time passed and you sunk deeper into your cocaine and I into my new location and position, and then came the early-morning calls, the fights, the lectures and the pleading, and finally the capitulation on both ends; you acknowledging loss of control and I for the necessity of guiding your recovery on a brainstorm and discipline. Nine days of hell and redemption, screams and blood, tears and hallelujahs, love and war all at once. I saw you come back to life from this death you seemed insistent on inhaling, and I had my baby back for a time, but only then did I realize the torture I carry daily: Give you back to yourself and lose you once and for all. And I would do it time and again to know you had another chance at sobriety and success. It was the responsible thing to do, which was our downfall all along, eh? You and I will both love well again, I know, but not with each other. Where we stand, figuratively and literally, the distance that exists is prohibitive beyond any hope of recovery, and I know this to my deepest instinct. No matter the number or caliber of my trysts before or since, nothing compares to the nights we had, and in truth, they never will again, for each touch is unique in the moment two or more share. If I deserve this outcome for all of the ones I was linked with for whatever reasons, then so be it. My past is littered with so many wastes of my time: Among them the obliterated, the betrayer, the irritant, the itinerant and the inconsiderate, each of them with a chunk of my irreplaceable time and the brand of my indignation across their psyches. You were the completion of my ideal, the closest I'd come to a match for my array of abilities and imperfections, and you glittered with light as none other. Perhaps I shall see your like again in my heart, perhaps not; I have not the prescient abilities to know one way or the other. Within each of us is a place that has known love of some sort, be it of family, friends, lovers or strangers. We've each lost something precious at least once or many times, scarring over our wounds with determination or abuse or denials or indifference. I walk amongst the public of this city and the world at large as just another man with a life to live, full of hopes and dreams and screams and dirty secrets galore, imperfect and longing and willful as any other, with gifts I treasure and failings I acknowledge as correctable. I see faces on a daily basis I shall never see again as I venture to and from my place of employment or to my home, and each one of them is bound as I to a wish of love and happiness and the right to know something good at least once in their lives if they have opportunity and the luck to experience it. Each of them has a story to tell, as I; each of them will wonder about so many things under the sun, as I. And behind this face, which they shall see once and perhaps never again, lies the memory of a beautiful woman I once knew and had as mine, even if but for one brief moment of the sun, and just like that, as the whisper of a dying child, she was gone. But I see your face and feel your spirit within me everywhere I travel, and I will love you, as I love what we once were, forever. And no matter where you are or who you shall be with, I pray you remember me sweetly, speak well of me, and carry our days as something special beyond compare. For that is all I wish to do now, so that I might know what it was like to be so loved, so admired and pleasantly challenged in every aspect of my life, an ascension incomparable to anything I have ever experienced. Live and love well forever, my blessed darling. Nothing but the best, always. |