the card attached

i got a phone call from the end of the world tonight.

every second of it was a delight. i don't know if i have ever been so charmed.

the man on the other end was just drunk enough to say all the things we've stopped saying since we started the transition from childhood to adulthood.

i love you, i miss you. we are separate now, he said. we forget about each other.

its amazing, the kind of clarity you can find at the bottom of a bottle of cheap whiskey.

we do forget about each other; i am forgetting about him every day.

every time i say, there is no one here. there is no one who will hug me, or tell me i'm beautiful, or share my bed.

i'm always wrong, even if i don't know it. i have him.

geographically, i told him, we may be separate. after all, he was at the end of the world tonight.

but what is that really? geography, i mean. when we do find time for each other, nothing has changed. i still have no room around him for shame or embarrassment, i have no room for hiding. he is one whose gaze will never make me feel lesser.

i am always carrying around the consequences of having known him; the confidences of having been allowed to be a part of his life. all the effects of walking into a dirty chinese restaurant at exactly the right moment on a warm fall evening.

i didn't have to be drunk to tell him that we're still the same people and that there is no replacement and absolutely no loss.

certainty, i have. at least about this one thing, and at least for tonight.

(thank you for being a friend)