The old Library

The Library was at the junction between two unimportant side roads. An old, imposing structure that seemed too grand for the streets or the neighborhood. I parked just outside and tried to settle myself. I was relieved to finally see a building I could remember, but its memories sent bursts of pain and nausea to my stomach. The stone wall behind the giant pillars was covered in moss and climbing ivy.

The building felt deserted and cold, yet the image of the old fireplace in the main hall appeared perfectly detailed in my mind. I saw my 16 year old self sat in the rocking chair facing the blazing fire; Simon kneeling beside, his head in my lap and his arms wrapped around my legs, my fingers twisting the curls at his temple.
I closed my eyes and pushed the image away.

I took a deep breath and turned off the engine, wrapped my coat tightly around me. The wind and icy rain lashed at my face as soon as I stepped out of the car. I ran up the steps to the shelter of the front porch and stopped to steady myself before pushing the door. It was locked. I tried another time, harder, trying to believe that my lack of strength was the problem here.
I stepped back and laughed out loud. Making plans and disappearing was such a Simon thing, it was hilarious. I had just flown for three hours, drove for three more to reach the place from which I had ran away, crying, ten years before. And I did it to meet the man who caused the crying; and the running.

I sat on the cold stone floor leaning against the wall. Despite feeling like an utter idiot, I caught myself smiling. To be fair, you can’t call yourself an idiot for a decision that was out of your control. Anything to do with Simon was. So when the email came – THE EMAIL for which I had been waiting ten years, on the app I re-installed on five different phones with mad hope. When the email came, I started thinking, weighing in my head the pros and the cons of seeing him again; but my hands were already packing. When I finally reached the obvious conclusion that coming to meet him was an awful idea, I had a bag in one hand and a plane ticket in the other.

Despite the tight clutch of disappointment that had settled in my stomach, I was determined to keep my head up and my spirits high. It was the same old scenario being played out and I had no more sorrow to spend on it. Being here again was exciting, with or without Simon. I started searching through my memory for a nice hotel, but quickly realized the mistake when my mind flooded with detailed images of all the rooms we shared: wall mirrors, large showers, wide window sills… I forced it away and laughed at myself again, took out my phone and mindlessly checked the mail app (an old, ingrained habit) before opening AirBnB. The pictures of cozy flats and quirky bungalows did a quick job of lifting my spirits and the prospect of wandering the streets of my old city alone became exhilarating.

Then the sound of footsteps came from the side road, and seemed to grow strangely loud. It was afternoon, a perfectly normal street, on a perfectly normal rainy day in a city. They could have been anyone’s yet I had no doubt that they were his. I let my head fall back, pressed it slowly and heavily against the cold stone and closed my eyes – a sequence as old as the memory of the first room. I steadied my breaths and sat perfectly still, listening to his echoing footsteps, the tapping of raindrops against his body, the thundering of my own heartbeat.
When he stopped, barely a meter from me, a eerie blanket of silence descended over everything and all I could hear was the ringing in my ears. There was no more rain, or wind, or cars; no more world but the cold stone of the library beneath me and a man standing before me. I couldn’t get myself to open my eyes – another deja-vu – but I knew there was a half-smile on his lips, a dark and curious look in his eyes.
He sat silently beside me and my senses filled with the spices of the same old cologne. My thoughts started swirling in my head and I wandered if he wore it on purpose. I listened to his breathing slow until it synced perfectly with mine. Slowly the other sounds returned; the rain, the cars, a siren in the distance. As I opened my eyes and returned to the world I laughed at myself, were the sirens for me? Perhaps they’re coming to take me to the madhouse where I clearly belong.

We sat in the familiar comfort of our silence for a while. At some point I let my palm touch the cold stone and waited for him to fill the gaps between my fingers with his own. He did quickly, as if reading my mind, and the touch of his skin sent pulsating currents through my veins. I let out a small gasp and bit my lip, let my head turn to face him and whispered the same old words of every time:
‘I didn’t think you would come.’ I repeated the same old reply in my head as he said it.
‘You were early.’

We burst out laughing, and my hand turned to squeeze his tightly. In an instant, the tension between us vanished and we were us again, the same old ‘us’. As if time itself was an illusion and the years of unforgiving distance had been nothing but a frightening dream.

Airless

Did you ever wonder why I had to be drunk

every time

you touched me, I shrunk.

You knew, so you’d pour me a glass,

perhaps you thought I was shy

enough to want to black out

before we fuck

up.

You pull me into this embrace and whisper

‘Relax, hug me..’

And I wrap my arms around your back

But they’re made of lead and they hang

limp.

I try to breathe but the air

is thick in my lungs like molasses.

So I stand there, airless and stiff in your enormous arms.

I swallow the lump in my throat, full of hatred;

and smile, my teeth so faintly grinding

and think of my treasure.

Oh, how I love him and how I wish

that he hadn’t been born at all,

because the pain that I swallow and hold

on the end of my fingers,

it falls on his hair and his fragile skin,

it sets on his long dark lashes when his eyes grow big

and he wonders why

Mummy is sad again

Mummy is angry again.

Why she never cries…..

He never writes on Sundays, yet here I am; checking every hour as if miracles were nothing but a mundane thing.

He never writes after three, yet here I am; waiting every hour as if he’d ever stay awake just to hear from me.

He never promised a thing, yet here I am; wishing for the impossible to occur at any minute. The impossible or the expected. I’m so fucking tired of this limbo.

But now I know on

But now I know, though it’s too late, that I was just a dove above your shoulder. I ripped the white wings from my back and quietly placed them on a heartbeat that still remembered.

I don’t know if I chose you, or I was destined yours; but I know I was not made out of your rib like Eve of Adam’s; I couldn’t build myself in you as sin in a temptation. I wasn’t light within your temple, I had no altar in your flesh.

Perhaps you pulled me from a dream that wept unnoticed on your pillow, and I slipped gently to your lips so you could build me from a whisper; or carve me out of darkness as an eternal faith.

Your love, I don’t know what it was. But mine – a flood of buds; which crowded in my flesh to bloom my bones into a spring. And from the wounds of my ripped wings flew insects, discarding my body like a sinful angel.

In my mortal eyes you were god’s offspring. But in your scornful love was raging fire, born from the candles of a self, which took us both to hell… and heaven.

And everytime you held me I felt the wings between us, the rib I wasn’t made of piercing through my skin. My eyelids draped over my bare flesh, when we made love like beasts to hide our strangeness.

And silent like two stones, one burried in the other, we drank eternity with hollow mouths; but failed to find each other in the secrets of stolen moments of the past.

But now I know, though it’s too late, that the eternity you gave me was damnation. I ripped my angel wings each time your love dressed me in dreams of insects and bloomed me into spring.

You were my last bet. I gambled the last piece of my soul on a losing game, convinced I would lose yet so drunk with its charm.

When the house took my last chip and saw what it was made of, they sighed for me; they gave me a room on the highest floor so that I may jump to my peace.

Ordinary

I hope that you are content, and thoughts of me don’t make you tremble in your sleep. That you don’t wake at midnight and sigh when she doesn’t sit up watching you like I did. I hope you don’t weep when you don’t drown in her eyes like you did in mine.

I hope she doesn’t trouble you with dreams and fantasies, that she’s grounded and rational like I was not.. that her love is peaceful and secure, not wild and fiery like mine was.

I hope that she doesn’t tighten her fingers around your throat when you fuck, that her lips don’t burn through your flesh when she calls your name.

You chose ordinary, my love. So I pray our love born in hell doesn’t make you ache to return.

I wish I had kept a piece of you now. I wish I didn’t rip the skin off where it smelled like yours. Oh God, I can’t believe you’re gone.

You were the one who stayed, the one who came back.. who wrapped my wounds in your whispers when my flesh was falling off the bones. You weren’t supposed to leave me floating but to pull me out and throw me in again.. and again.

You know I have witchcraft and Satan. You know that I can bring you back yet you know that I won’t. You believe that I’ll ask the goddess for your joy and not for your return. And you’re a fool; she told me that joy doesn’t wander through the world anymore, not since December. She told me that you’re wasting your time searching, since she hid it in the palm of my hand when I was twisting your hair around my fingers.

I did ask that you are forgiven, that your sins be washed in the salt of my tears but she laughed. We’re both fools; yet I was the one who stayed, the one who would have stayed for eternity.

I burned my tarot cards with your letters and there was black smoke. It smelled like hot bodies and sin, it sounded like mirros cracking into a thousand pieces. I blew the ashes in the ocean between us and prayed that you forget. But the goddess laughed a wild laugh and blew them back in my face.

I’ll let you walk in circles for a while. I’ll let you stumble on the words you refused to say and choke on the breaths you held when we fucked. But I’ll come to you in your dreams; it’ll be my only revenge.

At the end

He was writing for me, not for him. Dead cold, a shield of lead behind the bow.

I had been walking through the sky for a while, the coast ended a while back but as long as I didn’t look… God, I didn’t think the land was so far down, I didn’t think it was concrete.

And I don’t remember how to move now that he’s gone. My limbs twitch, my head falls to the side. The endless waiting I could deal with, but the end?

Set

I sit, staring at the horizon, counting the waves and the flickers of light from another sunset. I gather my limbs and wrap them around me to embrace the approaching night. They walk past; children, couples and dogs, dare not look at the body turning to beach, but stare out to the same sea. Their eyes are not searching; they see the sun and the coast; they don’t count the waves.

A few nights ago, when my lips crumbled, I had resolved to leave. But I saw a hand out there by the ships; or was it a bird.. then I noticed the seagulls flying off with my feet and I resolved to stay.

There’s a beach near St Ives where we sat one clear night in September. You won’t remember it, but you were there, leaning on a rock too close to the waves and the water filled your trainers and I laughed, alone..

There’s a bar in Naples near the gulf, where we sat drinking Merlot one rainy afternoon. You won’t remember it, but you were there, the wine left crimson marks on the corners of your lips and I laughed, alone..

There’s a lake in Annecy where we hired a boat and wandered. You won’t remember it, but you were there, it started to rain and the water dripped from your curls and I laughed, alone..

I’m still chosing the place to let go of your ghost..