Sometimes I forget I write stuff.

I was going through my saved documents tonight, to pick apart what can be submitted to magazines and what can't. Every so often I'll stumble on something I've written months earlier and forgotten about, usually because it's too personal or piercing to publish when it's fresh.

This is a little open-letter diddy I wrote months and months ago about a guy I was dating. Please bear in mind: THIS IS NOT ABOUT GREG! (well, not yet.) I just read it again and liked it and figured it has reached the level of muted vintage where it can now be trotted out for public viewing, like a peppery, tannic wine kept in a cellar until its fire has become mere tones of flavor. Enjoy.






Your picture’s in my notebook. I don’t look at it very much. I keep it behind the business cards and an old photo of my brothers as babies. When the notion does strike, I pull it out gingerly, like I’m scared of what I’ll see even though I know it by heart. There’s you on the beach. Your hair is wet. Your bathing suit is baggy, showing the pale stripe of skin just below your waistline as you turn towards the camera. You’re squinting into the sun, but I know despite the shadows that your eyes are vibrant green.

All my friends that have seen it say you’re so gorgeous. They’re right. But they don’t know how looking at it makes me nauseous, like I’m looking at a beautiful picture of pain. Like looking at something once ripe and luscious that has rotted, choked by its own deliciousness. Our love was like a firecracker - bright, hot, fast and powerful. But it burnt out too quickly, a victim of the reality of plain old oxygen.

Now I’m caught in a ridiculous place - feeling compelled to call you, as though it would make me feel closer just to hear your machine, and knowing that talking only to your machine will push me further away than ever. And I know that you know that I know that you won’t be calling tonight, you haven’t been for days. You’ve come to realize what I realized before - the heart of a woman can never be found in the arms of a man.