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A Note For You
The fact that the pillow beside me is now cold tosses the now fragmented shards of my heart all across the floor of what used to be our bedroom. That was your side of the bed. Where I thought you’d always be. Each shattered piece crawls around the bedroom blindly, searching drawers and closets, under the bed and in the adjacent bathroom, for what I did to lose you.
You see, I’m still in bed trying to figure out what crime I committed that warranted you seizing your love back from me. The only consistent thing about a person’s shitty relationships is that person, so I’m hoping there’s something more to it just that I can’t see. Is it really my fault?
I thought these were the kinds of things you wanted us to talk about. We were not some one night stand. Not some “I’ll have my people call your people” affair. I was your boyfriend. So why was it so hard to give a proper goodbye? That note you left me does me injustice and you a disservice. You know it, wherever you are. Cryptic goodbyes are the mainstay of abandonment, aren’t they?
Did you really abandon me? Why did we make love that night only to have you run away? What kind of cruelty is that? Did you come to me one last time to see if the sex was good? To see whether I’d fuck you harder like you asked me to? Cuddle and gently rock you to sleep? Remind you why being lissome enough to put your ankles behind your head feels so good? Or was it so that I’d remember you by your ample bust and supple thighs; your kisses of cherry licorice mixed from the lip gloss you wore and the cloves you smoked?
You were the one that lived life with no regrets. We were happy, and I wouldn’t call that a lie. You were always terrible at lying. Better to run away with your secret than to tell me yourself, I suppose. But didn’t you say we’d always be together? At the beach, in the park, ensconced in the four walls of bedroom, you always told me I made you smile. A picture’s worth a thousand words, but the thousands of smiles framed by your beautiful face were worth communication only by effusive silence. And that wasn’t enough to make you want to stay?
Do I have to change the answering machine now? My voice is always so ugly and gruff on the phone, which is why you recorded it for us in the first place. My friends will call me foolish if they call and hear Nadine even though there isn’t one anymore. But I can’t play God and press delete on the life that lives on in my heart. What kind of man kills someone who isn’t even there?
I’m always afraid that you’d be too proud to come back. Even if you wanted to, even if you could, you’d never apologize. You’d left me and it was crossing the Rubicon, no matter how much I want you back. It isn’t fair. You were always so thoughtful, so caring. Doing this…what changed last night? What don’t I know? Couldn’t we have talked about it? Was there another man?
Your note still baffles me. “I’m sorry. Don’t think that I don’t love you.” didn’t tell me much more than what I already knew. In flowing script on yellow legal pad, speckled with teardrops and closed with a kiss. A cliché lipstick kiss. Aside from the fact that you don’t abandon those you love, and not being that sorry since you don’t have to live with the guilt of me, it’s a fine work of heartbreak. Architecturally simple, terse, and functional. I’m sort of flattered that you thought I deserved eloquence over substance. It suggests a bohemian flair I don’t really see myself as having. But I’m glad you thought so. But the kiss?
I’d have thought that this would be one of those things that happens and makes you look back at a life’s worth of signs you had missed. You didn’t exactly give me fair warning. Or did I just miss it?
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. A night on the town, dinner, and then some time just for us. In bed, as my eyelids drooped and we lay entwined in each other’s arms, you whispered that it was a night to remember. Irony much? Could yesterday really have been so bad? What can’t I see now that I should have? How could you leave me like this?
I look at the note, and then at you. The look on your face isn’t quite unhappy; it’s somewhere between “my roommate’s cat just died” and “this ice cream is really good.” It’s certainly a look you’ve given me before. Remember how we’d made love in this little shower-bath before? Seeing you in the ruddy water, it’s all I can see or hear; the sound of your porcelain skin against porcelain tile, your ecstasy and mine, the shower like summer rain on our backs. It’s a better sight than the ruddy water you’re in, don’t you agree?
The coroner tells me you were two months pregnant. Funny, your note didn’t say it was mine.
© 2008 Eugene Aarons-Cooke
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