Mac Miller’s “Congratulations” plays. “Am I supposed to... okay.” It’s feeling about 65-ish out, light breeze. I hear the lamp post struggling to spark back on. I’ve been trying to convince myself out of love for four months. “Love, love, love, love, love, (sex).” I sneeze, hard, twice. The first a far lower pitch than the latter, less-grunty “chichhh.”
It’s 2:58 a.m. I stop myself from tweeting for the umpteenth time, sip my beer, blow a snot rocket to eject the slime from the ensuing allergies. Gross but necessary; I’m not getting up for a paper product. I don’t want to wake the roommates.
The air conditioning unit from the house to my left kicks on, a dull, roaring grumble. Crickets serve as its backbeat. And I am free, as an air conditioner to my right now echos the chorus. “Past, the present, future, all the gossip, god damn.”
Skin tanned from a nap in the morning’s sun, I feel at peak natural. Suddenly, I’m pulled back to the cold dentist office, in January, that morning with her, sobbing, hearing that I broke her front tooth behind the gum, and that she’ll need a replacement. “You remind me of the color blue; girl, I’m so in love with you.”
I shake it, I’m ashamed by it, I’m sorrowful for it. I cannot undo the horrors I’ve committed in these 26 years; what I’ve taken I’ll never be able to return. But I can’t live life filled with regret.
I pull into the breeze, the crickets still chirping in unison, as the AC units subside. Someone pulls into the driveway, and I quiet, not that I was making any noise. But I try to feel out who’s here, to center on the now, to forget regret and hurt and all I have done to deserve being left like this.
I didn’t deserve it. I know this. But to justify it simplifies the fact that you can ultimately trust no one in this life but yourself.
Before she left, she said I would always be alone. And she’s right, because it was me and her, or nothing. I trust no one, not even myself, and there’s only her to blame. No, only me to blame, forget her. “Baby... you were everything I ever wanted.”
I want nothing to do with her, yet everything to do with her, all at once. Is this insanity? When does the cycle break? From Central Florida, 3 a.m., on a concrete slab that once laid beneath a shed prior to a recent hurricane in my friend’s back yard, how does one unbreak their own heart?
I make an even pace back up the sidewalk to the porch door, toss my empty can in the nearly overflowing recycling bin, and breathe in the last breath of night air. As I make my way back to the guest room, I contemplate, “I could have gone to bed with one of the roommates tonight.” But I arrive at the conclusion I always do; sleeping alone ultimately is better than feeling alone with you. I’ll sleep better tonight. I won’t have the typical nightmares of her returning to break my heart all over again. Nothing but sweet dreams for me onward from this point. “That’s my only chance, I better get it right.”
And with that night, I hadn’t had a nightmare about her, not for weeks, not until she came back. “I see your eyes look through my soul, don’t be surprised, that’s all I know.” I can’t stop loving her. I thought that I could. I just don’t want to, I don’t want to lose this feeling, the feeing of her aura in mine. But she’ll never be ready for the hate we’d get, the resistance we’d have to take up. She doesn’t know who she actually is. And I’ve never been more sure of me. Take care until next time. “The sun don’t shine when I’m alone...see a love like mine too good to be true.”