So I bleed you and I breathe you, but that doesn’t mean I think about you with every drag of my soggying cigarette. It’s just the rain, it’s been here before.
Like I haven’t noticed you peering out the clouded window of your apartment just to see if I’m still camped out on your fire escape. No, I’m not there, I’ve moved onto the bench around front, and I still feel your presence in the damp air. A vagabond asks for some change, and I spare him all I can, kept in the left pocket of the jean jacket you gave me, because the sewn patch of The Who reminded you of me in the thrift store window. It fit me, and when I wear it I smell you and I think of all the love drunk times you slid your arms into it and squeezed the juts of my hipbones. Your breath swirled with Camel Lights — never menthol — and I could’ve gotten drunk off the damp hair at the base of your neck. Come upstairs… you’d breathe into my mouth, and I’d comply.
But after the alcohol squeezed itself out of your pores and nothing was left but the dull ache of a hangover and the feel of cotton clouding your mouth, you wanted nothing to do to with me. You shook me awake, told me some extraordinarily elaborate tale of visitors or appointments with fabled folk. I tried to call your bluff a few times, and you scowled at me, your face smeared with lingering eye makeup and hair greasily slung around your shoulders in long, dark waves. Yeah. You were a cheap drunk, but what did that make me? I slept with you every single time.
So, I’d leave and I’d walk the 18 blocks back to my apartment and unlock the door. I almost dreaded pressing play on the answering machine and let my fingers linger above the large red button before depressing it, wearily. A beep tinged the otherwise still air and then your voice: I’m sorry that I string you along like this, but I just need some time. Some time….
And then there was me mumbling to myself in the kitchen while I fished for the bottle of scotch. Fuck ice, fuck glasses, it was me and Johnny Walker for the night. You made it sound like you were the one aching every time, but you would never be able to see the hurricane inside my heart. I took off your frivolous jacket and flung it. I didn’t care where it landed. It reminded me of you and it stung. It stung worse than the tracks your fingernails left on my lower back. It stung worse than the necklace of bruises your mouth created along my collarbone. It stung.
My clothes were a bread-crumb trail to the shower where I let the piping hot water wash you away. Down my body, down my legs, into the drain. I watched you swirl in a mass of fruity shampoo and mint body wash. You were gone and off of me, but your presence still lingered as I repeatedly brought the bottle to my lips while the water washed me clean. Damn you. How did you do it every time?
I didn’t bother getting dressed after that but instead pulled on the terrycloth bathrobe I’d had since my freshman year of college. The lilac-dyed fabric was faded and nearly threadbare, but I didn’t mind. I couldn’t put clothes back on. I just wanted to be naked and alone, like a True Hollywood Story of a washed up rock star.
I fell asleep on the couch that night after I’d finished my bottle of scotch. I stung again, everything stung; every drink stung the back of my throat and all the way down my esophagus and dispersed in a burning framework of tree roots into my stomach. I didn’t want to feel, and I didn’t: Nothing at all could be touched right then because I was untouchable, unfadeable — and all in all a cosmological joke.
When I woke up I was in bed, with clothes on. Shambled clothes that I wouldn’t have picked out on my own: an old t-shirt acquired from some random concert and a pair of pajama pants that had paint stains on them from when I redid the bathroom. I didn’t mind them, figured I’d sobered up in the wee hours and fished for something, but that wasn’t the case. As I rolled over, I felt something sturdy and realized I’d made another horrific mistake. It was you.
You explained you came over to apologize (again) and I’d forgotten to lock the door (again), and when you saw me passed out on the couch in my robe (again), you figured you’d help. Thanks, but I didn’t need it. I didn’t need anything from you. I told you to take your jacket, but you didn’t listen. You made me tea and kissed my aching, aching head. You stayed with me all night and kissed my sore and stinging body from head to toe. That night I fell asleep naked again, but with you in my arms, and I knew it couldn’t last.
It didn’t. The same hideous cycle repeated itself and there you were right at the center of it.
My body couldn’t do it anymore, so one day I grabbed a box and took the whole day to throw your crap into it: your CDs, your sweatpants, the underwear you kept in with mine, your pictures of us in Mexico, your pictures of us skiing, your reading glasses, your mug…. It was quite an eclectic group, and I thought about putting it on the curb and writing a “FREE FOR THE TAKING” sign to go with it. However, I simply phoned you and told you I couldn’t do it anymore, your things were outside my door. I would buzz you up, but I knew you wouldn’t come in and I sure as hell wasn’t facing you. Oh, you’ll be back, you spat up at me. You’ll be back….
But I wasn’t back, not for a while at least. I kept my distance, and you kept yours. No calls, no e-mails, no random visits at 2 a.m. because you couldn’t sleep. I didn’t see you, my body breathed again. I still didn’t see you, I felt new and fresh. And when I knew you were gone, I felt a sense of empowerment. I even joined the gym. I did it. You were nothing anymore.
So when I found that damn jean jacket stuffed underneath my bed, everything collapsed — the walls built inside of me fell to shit. All because of you and that stupid laugh and stupid smile. All because of you. My heart erratically beat into my ribcage and felt as though it might crack under such pressure. I guess running with a lit cigarette in my mouth didn’t help either, but it was cold and I needed someway to get warm.
Your building was the same as always — crumbling facade, modest accommodations and, of course, you. My eyes did a scan for the second floor up, and I found the windows facing me. Your lights were on. You were home. Was someone with you? I ran half a block to the back of the building, rain starting to sprinkle now. There was your fire escape, with all the ugly potted plants along the staircase growing with such lushness they appeared to be plucked out of the Amazon. That was more of a fire hazard, if I do say so myself.
I couldn’t go any closer than the sidewalk, and I saw you there, sitting in your armchair as you gazed out the window. You were waiting for me to come home, but I couldn’t. My feet carried me back around front and I ditched my soaked cigarette, only to light a new one. I sucked on it like it was my only source of life for the rest of my days, that it was my touchstone, my keystone. I gave the bum some money and sat there, pulling hard on my quickly-dampening smoke, swallowing it whole.
That’s when I heard it, clear as a bell in a churchyard.
Got a light?
And there you were, standing in the rain.
