He Wants To Be

Today I de-contacted her on Flickr. It wasn’t an easy thing to do but I couldn’t take the idea of seeing her photos in my Flickr feed — photos of her and her significant other on vacation, as if some perfect family had been resurrected from the ashes of what we all know was a failed relationship. But that’s neither here nor there, I suppose. I couldn’t take the images. The thoughts that those images created.

But Flickr was, for a long, long time, “ours”. We used Flickr’s various methods of privately sharing images as our way of documenting our secret relationship. Flickr served as our historian, our place of honesty amidst a world of secrecy. There were, by the end, over one-thousand photos of her, all taken by me over the past five years. Many, if not most, were shared only with her. The views registered on those images were all her views. My record of her participation. Her many comments were her way of sending little notes to me.

But today it all ended. I did not block her, but I did de-contact her. It was, as I said, a very defensive and self-protecting move on my part. None of this is easy. None of it.

If I did not have my friend, my very good friend Mary, I do not know what I would do. I think I would have gone insane. Mary has saved me these past few months — making me go out, do things, have fun. We have gone to museums and restaurants, she has managed, even, to get me going to yoga. Hot yoga, no less.

Mary.

Late at night, walking into the kitchen, finding her standing there, water in hand, wearing only loose white boxers.  I walk up to her, press against her, abdomen to warm abdomen. She places the glass down, parts her legs just a bit wider, rocks forward on her feet and leans in and up to reach my mouth with hers. Our arms intertwining, tongues sliding, my left hand moving north to hold, to caress, her delicate face; my right moving south to slip beneath elastic and insinuate itself within her.

We are breathing, deeply.

…what do you do when the person you’ve loved for five years tells you that they no longer what you to be a part of their life?  Seriously, I’m simply lost as to what to do.

viewed via Netflix online

I always wake before my alarm. My mind, you, entwined. I reach for my glasses. Unplug my charging iPhone. Grab underwear. Find clothes for the day. Shave. Teeth. Warm the shower water and step on the scale while I wait. Get in the shower, pulling the curtain behind me. I feel the hot water flowing down and over me. I lean my head back under the hot water and think. You. Me. Us.

Polls show that the ranks of atheists are growing. The American Religious Identification Survey, a major study released last month, found that those who claimed “no religion” were the only demographic group that grew in all 50 states in the last 18 years.

Full article.

do you remember that feeling when you were 16 and you were utterly absolutely head over heels in love with that girl? every cell in your body called for her, every second away was like having daggers plunged into your heart. every neuron firing in your brain contained images of her and only her. separation meant only suffering. your goal, always, was to be with her.

throughout life you experience diminishing variations of this longing. it fades slowly at first, bit by bit, person by person. you go through a series of “this is the one” loves before you become hardened to life’s courser realities. each new person brings with them more negatives — oh, the people aren’t getting more negative, it’s just that your vision is becoming clearer. and, at some point, you decide that the one you are with at the moment will be “the one.” yes, you’re in love with them, but it’s not like it was when you were 16. but you’ve become “grown up”, you think. you need to make rational decisions now. yes, you do love them, but just not with that all-encompassing heart-wrenching passion.

and so you go on. you may have kids. you find your career. you settle. fuck, what a word. settle.

and so you go on.

and then it happens.

one day. one day you meet someone. you get to know them. you talk, spend some time over coffee. exchange stories and histories and interests.

and then, when you leave them. wham.

it hits you. it’s scorching in its intensity. you forgot what it was like. deep inside you, your belly aflame, your veins coursing with oxygen to fuel your tingling flesh. you are…. alive again.

and so you go home, and everything is different. the colors are different, the faces are different, the food and the yard and the car and the television and everything… every fucking thing is different. and that person you are with, that life partner? they will never look the same.

I haven’t phoned or texted or Tweeted or anything in over 48 hours. This is very, very difficult.

remember that you must die

I do not want to die without experiencing the moment that arrives as I lay in her arms — that morning mist that floats through my mind and slowly nudges me towards the touch of her arm, that pushes me to roll and embrace her after that peaceful night’s sleep. I do not want to go before her eyes open upon mine and dance in the mingling of shared visions.

I want to sit at that morning table and glimpse her across the Sunday Times, to catch her glance and subtle smile as life slips slowly past. And I want to crawl between her again, take shelter in her, seek sanctuary in her seductive silence.

Why would I go elsewhere and seek pain when she offers me such comfort?