Another darkness
remembering at 11:10 a.m. on 2003-04-27
It's long past when I normally crawl into my dark, lonely bed and fall asleep.
He's sitting across from me on the chilled summer night pavement, beneath the cheap alcove of my apartment patio. I'm staring, unknowingly at the red plaid pattern of his pajama pants, the ones he lives in while with me. I reach across, not really aware of my actions as the slow movements of the night turn our words against us, and take the hem briefly between my fingers.
--Soft...like his eyes as they watch me in a hesitant silence.
His eyes are hauntingly blue, loving and lost. I've never known that kind of moment until this.
His knees are pulled to his chest, as if he was trying to pull his body back into his childhood once more...anything but to be caught up in this horrible, beautiful nightmare.
A pair of cigarettes, burning thin trails of smoke into the dusky air. We stare at each other silently. This silence though, I try to hold to... on-command.
He is my borrowed lover. He'll never belong to me, but even in this tired silence, he has owned me more than any other human being. For that I am empty--
almost humiliated...but lost in the euphoria none the less.
It all melts away when he speaks to me in that soft whisper of a voice.
"I love you...."
His words are hard in his throat, but he gives a shy smile...as if he had to fight his immortal soul to pull them out. I can see the battlefield in his eyes, he's trying to collect my heart...and his morality all at once.
"I love you too..."
My voice seems more out of place. A near intrution on his beauty.
"Promise that you'll never forget me?"
Hoarse words pleading. Because I know very well, where these things always go. And I know the statement alone, is meaningless.
But just this once...I want to hold on a little longer...before he stands...to look back at me, before walking back in to the house.
"I'll never forget you..." his shy smile fading into a sad-panic. As if he too, knows its futile.
I smile, almost bitterly I think-- because I know that the moment he walks out of my sight, he will have resigned this moment to the mistakes we've already made, to burdens of the weak.
But I can't help but watch him still...and crawl into his bed like a child, waiting to be comforted one last time before he is gone.
These become my most sacred memories.
Even if they have already become lost.
