On love - Part XII

I always want the things I can't have because thinking that I don't deserve them makes me high like nothing else. I'm a pathetic martyr who wallows in her own self-pity over the never ending feelings of inadequacy, taking long warm showers to dilute all the voluntary teardrops from her eyes.

In October he went to New York to visit his aunt. I stayed behind in a city that more and more came to resemble a prison, once again. He wrote to me. He sent me a real handwritten letter with little stamps and stickers on it, just to say that he missed me where he was . He wrote all the sparkling autumn leaves in Central Park loose their color next to you.

I guess I should have been glad, but I don't function like that. I knew he was talking to someone else, that even though he wrote my dearest Avy, I was in fact just a reflection of what he really wanted and deserved. I always knew I wasn't enough, that I would never be anything more than a waste of his amazing affection, a hollow face for a perfect love.

I knew it was time.

On love - Part XI

It was never an immediate effect. When we came back from Paris and he said he loved me I was filled with weightless summer clouds and a feeling of serenity that lasted for weeks. But I'm a restless person, and tranquility frightens me more than any ghost.

So the more I felt good enough for him the more I wanted to understand why. I couldn't figure it out, how someone as beautiful as him would want to spend time with someone like me, how I could be seen as anything beyond inadequate. All I needed was an excuse, a sign, something to tell me that he had made a mistake, that he was in fact looking at someone else when he spoke of love.

As autumn closed in on us we decided to go swimming one late Thursday evening. The sun was beginning to set, the cliffs by the beach were still warm and people were on their way home. For days I had wanted to touch him, to feel his lips against mine and be close to his body in the water. The air was full of electricity from imminent thunder storms, and I felt magnetic as I undressed in front of him.

When, in the corner of my eye, I could see him looking away, purposely, I just felt vulnerably naked.

On love - Part X

I would like to say that this weekend reminded me of him, but then again, they all do. In everything that happens I can always find some kind of reflection of what he was, what we were, if I only try hard enough. When I'm down I remember how safe and protected I felt in his arms, when I'm happy I suddenly remember he's not by my side anymore, and when I'm angry I want to scream at the world for making me care too much about the most stupid little things. I never did with him.

When we came back from Paris I was convinced that everything would return to its normal state, that the amazing time we spent there could never continue as anything more than a deceitful memory, but I was wrong. He said I wasn't sure if I really loved you before we went away, holding my little hands in his. But now I am.

I only understand it now, but as strange as it sounds, that was probably our death sentence. Up till then I had tried so hard to be good enough for him, never actually knowing if I could, but his reassurance only planted another sort of doubt in my mind.

On love - Part IX

How do you keep from burning your bridges when all you can think of is fire?

I tried, I really did, but when we were together I was always counting down the hours and minutes to when we would have to say goodbye again. I just couldn't help myself. If that was my way of imbibing our closeness I might as well have tried catching a ghost. When he finally told me that he couldn't breathe anymore it stung me like a thousand arrows. I should have responded by giving him the time and space he needed, but instead I found other ways of choking him.

Summer came and he said we needed to break up with the old, so we decided to take a trip together. He was the kind of person that could say Paris is beautiful this time of year without it sounding like a complete cliché. I believed every word he said, and he was right, of course. The air and our hearts were taken hostage by electrified thunder storms. We could have stayed in the hotel room but we both loved being soaked by the rain, so we took long walks and undressed each other where we thought no one could see us. It was the best two weeks of our relationship, because life seemed so entirely limitless. We broke out from the restraints of the everyday as soon as we lifted from LAX.

The only problem was I always knew the exact boarding time of our 747 flight back home.

On love - Part VIII

As time goes by, everything fades to distant memories and a lifetime might seem like so much less. What you easily forget is all the turning points, all those events that made you the person that you are because you had to change your ways.

When I was little I loved butterflies. I used to chase them through the flowery fields surrounding my grandparents' summer house, just to be able to claim them as my own. Then someone told me that if you touch a butterfly's wings it wont be able to fly again, so if I really loved them I would stop chasing them. I guess I understood, and in any case I never did it again. I wanted them to be free so that they could be beautiful, otherwise they would die and it would be my fault.

But with him, I forgot all about that. He said I love you and broke my heart because it sounded as if he really meant it. I wanted so much to show him that I deserved it, but I was afraid that if I let him look too deep in to my eyes he would discover that my soul was a void that would never be enough for him. So instead of letting him be his own I tried to claim him and own him as mine. I tried to touch his wings so that he couldn't fly away from me, just like a butterfly.

I still love them, but they scare me now because they remind me of my own ephemerality. And what can you say about someone that once tried to destroy beauty?

On love - Part VII

I fell in love with him because he was an utterly good person. He was never one who stood out in a crowd, never one of those people that everyone noticed as soon as he entered a room, but he listened to me. He listened and he truly wanted to know how I was, or if I needed him in any particular way. And I did. I needed him to lift me up when I felt like falling, but as soon as that shrewish feeling of inadequacy began tormenting my already worried mind, he became an addiction. When he forgot little things like me going away with my mother, I didn't blame him. I blamed myself.

The time we spent apart suddenly meant more than the time we were together. I used to envy all the people that passed him in the subway tunnels or just bumped in to him on their way to some pointless meeting with some pointless friend. I couldn't believe that they got to touch him when I wasn't even there, and I wanted them to know what an amazing person they just came close to. I wanted to tell them so that they could appreciate and cherish that moment, and treasure him just as much as I.

But they never did.

On love - Part VI

It's a beautiful thing when the spring flowers blossom, but it also means a loss of innocence, that there is nothing left to hide, and that there can be no more secrets. If you're anything like me you might start wondering what else there is, and when you turn around to look you'll only see that there's no way back. When you're done dreaming, you have to wake up.

***

Everything about us was physical, even the way I missed him when we parted. Seeing him disappear slowly through the dusty windows of the bus felt like being struck by lightning or losing your breath as you're smothered to death with a pillow. But the worst pain is always that which is inflicted on us by the people we love the most.

One evening in early March, as we were waiting for one of those busses together, I noticed it for the very first time. He asked are you busy this weekend, and I said didn't I tell you? He looked at me with a blank face and my heart skipped a beat. I knew I had told him about my mother and I going away for a few days, because it was something I wanted him to know. I wanted him to know so I told him and he forgot. After a few painfully silent seconds he laughed and said right, I'm sorry.

And how dearly I wanted him to be.

On love - Part V

All my life I've felt like a stranger in this city, but with him it was as if it didn't matter anymore. The streets, the houses and the people could be as repulsive as they wished, I'd always have him as my sanctuary, his arms as a safe place to hide and forget the outside. If I dreamt of running away before I met him, I suddenly didn't feel the need to make it a reality. We could laugh at the fakes and curse at the wicked together, I could be everything I always wanted to be but never dared try on my own, because he protected me.

And when I finally had someone to fight my battles with, I lost interest in the war.

For his birthday I gave him an old signed copy of a book he had been talking about. It was extremely hard to find and he loved it, but the most valuable thing I ever gave him was my scent. I knew that when we parted his fingers smelled of me, and there was no rain to wash it away. He couldn't escape me.

On love - Part IV

With her I lost not only a friend but also the last pieces of an innocent childhood. In a heartbeat everything was real and merciless and I knew I had to grow up. There is only so much time for you to decide which roads to take when you're standing there, and life doesn't wait.

After the rains in early February I went to his place for the first time. I had to change busses a couple of times, he had carefully written down instructions on a piece of paper I kept in my pocket. An hour or so later he picked me up at the last stop and we ended up on his balcony. It was one of those days when you don't really feel the temperature, even after sunset, so we just sat there talking, drinking wine, and forgot all about the time.

After midnight he said you can't go home now and I said I don't want to. Calmly and without saying a single word he undressed me right there under the black starless skies, his patient hands all over my shivering body.

Inside me: bubbles and butterflies, and him.

On love - Part III

It's so rare to find someone to care about who also cares about you, and when you lose them it feels like losing your breath. You fight with every inch of your screaming body to stay above the surface, and the worst part is it doesn't get easier.

I never understood how people in general deal with death, how they talk about heaven and a chance to meet again. I never got the point with all those ceremonies and gatherings and I don't see how it could ever be possible to find any peace. My guess is they're all cheap excuses for denying the inevitable. Maybe it's just in the human nature to fantasize and dream up stories that comfort us when nothing seems to make any sense.

I turned to him, my first and only love, because I needed him. He had no clichés, no advices, just a warm and welcoming embrace. Amidst my never-ending tears I said why didn't I call her more often and he said she knew you loved her. Of course he didn't know anything about her, but he said the right things, the things I wanted to hear.

He made that harsh non-winter winter in cold, distant LA a little easier, and I think that's why we became swing sets in the park, porcelain hands and talk about butterflies that following spring.