she ate my heart. while it was still beating in my chest.
she consumed my love and now i am incomplete without it; only whole when we commune in private, in silence, in dark corners just out of reach of the glaring light of the daytime sun or nighttime street lamps.
i left her, eventually, and she fought me; bared teeth and unsheathed claws glowing in the shadows.
i let alcohol swallow what remained.
“Do you have time for a drive-by?” she texted.
“Sure, anything to get out of here.”
i met her in front of my office building and she held me close, far closer than either of us should have been okay with, given the state of our relationship. i buried my nose in her hair, tried not to smell her. tried not to remember what used to come next.
we walked a few blocks to our old favorite hideout, a real dive bar’s dive bar called Laurel’s. it’s probably pertinent to mention at this point that this place doesn’t really exist, and we never had a favorite hideout either. this is a wish made real only in words.
we walked instead to her apartment. her apartment is too big for her, but she needs the space to keep her two dogs happy. we settle into the couch in a way that feels worn and comfortable, our knees meeting in the middle, her impish smile shining right on my face. i scoot a little to my left and shift a little to my right and my knees are between hers. The look in her eyes makes my blood rush faster. the big dog smells me from the other room and lopes in to greet me with her guttural inside voice.
we sit like this, aroused but abstaining, for about 30 minutes, long enough to check in and check out, so to speak. she’s been struggling with school and i with work. two motherfucking constants in a world that constantly changes. and i’ve been struggling with her. sometimes she tells me she still loves me, but it’s a joke to her, a laugh, a lark. yet, here i am, despite my anguish, ready for this seance, this revival of ghostly feelings and mummified emotions. I refuse to let her own me, but it’s hard not to submit.
one week later, i’m alone in washington square park. i’m circling the park, enshrouding it with my loneliness, criss-crossing at the fountain and the dog run, like i always do. suddenly, she touches my shoulder: tenderness in an anonymous wasteland.
i turn to face her, and exhale hard when she punches me in the stomach.
she’s here with the dogs again, being pulled in two directions by two eager animals. as always, she can’t pick a direction. it’s not that she’s indecisive, but that she wants all of the things she knows she can’t have. it’s no mean feat to hold her attention: she is eminently distractable. she invites me to join her on her walk and i oblige. little is said–there is so little left to be said–and we just amble along, stopping whenever a beast decides there’s something that needs to be sniffed or stared at. eventually we reach her apartment (we always seem to end up here) and i stand sheepishly, silently wondering if she’ll invite me up, silently wondering if i’ll ever be happy again.
“Would you like to come up?”
“I don’t know, it never ends well, does it?”
“It does too, David. Don’t be dramatic.”
we unleash the dogs and they scamper ahead of us, stopping at every landing to make sure we’re still following. i stop myself from bounding up the stairs, take them one at a time. she stays one step behind me, no doubt plotting to sweep my feet out from underneath me. she knows i know what she’s doing, but does it anyway, reaching for my heel and i dodge and shove her into the railing. she collapses in laughter and i turn and sit down next to her. she can’t stop giggling and it’s infectious; suddenly we’re holding our sides, each other’s sides, each other’s faces.
“Sierra, this is why it never ends well. We just don’t quit when it’s time to quit. We are stuck in our old paths; our journey together is ended but our gait remains the same.”
“I think about you sometimes,” she says.
“I think about you all day,” I say.
this quiet confession is interruped by a jangling collar and impatient tic-tac-ing paws on the stairs above us. we walk the rest of the way up to the 3rd floor holding hands until we reach her apartment door. she rummages for her keys and i have a moment to think.
“I’m not coming in, Sierra. It’s been lovely, but I have to go.”
she pouts but lets me leave.
that night i dream about dangerous, noisy sex with her best friend.
i want to tell her, so bad, that she’s a god among men. i want to lift her off her feet and carry her through life.