Madrid’s Jewel (My Very Own Substance For Loneliness)
She was right
But
I did love her in case you wondered.
I fell asleep on her shoulder, I remember her sleepily pulling the comforter over me, a dazed smile, I, alit & her, sloppy with grace
I drunkenly cried into her another night, broken like never before, and she slurred the name only she called me, both her hands cupping my face.
Another evening, we passed the Marlboro between us, & in the fog of the orange bathroom, our heavenly place, it was impossible to tell our souls apart
She made fun of me for smoking golds, and I made fun of her eating straight Hawaiian rolls, and when she laughed, I swear light came from her throat.
I saw her that day by the pond, I sat on the grass, smoked a camel blue, read her my favorite poetry, and wrote. I told her, “no one else listens to me like this,”
The last time I see her it is no different. We are talking about death this time, not life. I tell her I’m not sober. She tells me she isn’t eating; I tell her I love her more than the word love describes. We smoke more cigarettes, and it feels exhausting. I tell her I am tired of being me. She tells me she’s leaving. I selfishly tell her she won’t find herself at home in Arizona, I don’t say that I know she’s meant for the city. I don’t say I’m jealous that those gritty skies get her soul, and I won’t.
Later, she tells me I’m too self-absorbed. I choke on my own throat. She’s cruel about it & I feel like a little kid. I wanted her to be proud of me someday. I watch her leave. The next morning, I say a silent goodbye in sociology, and do what I can only describe as run away.
I balance a crocheted flower on the handle of her dorm door.
I say silently,
“In case you wondered, I saw you as permanent marker, tights, sundays, the bus station. In case you wondered, I saw you as star barrettes, and sex pistols, and a gun. I saw you as loneliness and vanity and sex and hell. I saw you as sock monkeys, complicity, the city, simplicity. I saw you as the cacti I got at my cousins wedding, the only thing I ever kept alive by myself. I saw you as the cranberries, video essays, and beach houses. I saw you as bass. I saw you as bliss. Straight from the adored, I saw you faceless. I saw you as Phoenix and a fever of fireball, I saw you as seattle and sincerity.
Now, I see you as grief, abandonment, and a coupon for intimacy…”
It’s over.
I try to clean her love off of me that day, but outside it’s pouring.
I scrub the loneliness with the pine-lime scent off me for weeks.
But it doesn’t work, it leaves streaks.
If you see this, I am exhausted again. I always have a fever for you to feed on, find your own warmth in my heart & mind, Let me offer for you to leave when you have found what you needed to find
I’ve always been a nest of emptiness for others to ravage. You’re not like them. In my mind, we still have sleepovers on two separate mattresses.