Unsent Letter, #1

You make me uncomfortable.

You know it.

You met me at a party where I was happy drunk and dancing, somehow sitting on the couch next to the keg; you soberly confided that you have leukemia, and only a handful of days were left.

If there is any reason in my ardor, it lies in the idea that you might actually perish beside me in bed, too sick to fight. I’ve assumed that you are cowardly, a condition created by your philosophy degree. Openly jaded, antisocial, you hated being at there, not knowing us drunk and happy dancers. Not being able to dance. Pragmatist.

But oh you are sweet. You and those noises you make just before you cum, I have never heard anything half as honest. Like watching some one have their heart broken, gasping sobs, like sleep talking or intervalled airport greetings.

I want you to love me like you love the girls in New York City, who are independent, small and devious. My body doesn’t know how to be small and devious, but it tries to slide up next to yours like it has always been so. It wonders if you can tell how small and devious it is pretending to be, if, when your hands fall across my stomach, they are worried by the secrets I have to hide.

I want you to watch me when I sleep, to admire my fingers silently wrapped around yours, to touch my feet gently, so that I do not mind. To kiss my back and sigh. Pieces have always made me uncomfortable.

Neither of us knows why you called me after that party, I still don’t remember giving you my number. Introduced yourself as Dust, childish and rude; Daniel. I invited you to another party, and neither of us knows why you went. I wanted to be embarrassed by your small stature and wounded posture, but you held out your arms, and the strange new way you smelled forced me to forgive you for coming. Later that night there was a fight, some one was stabbed, and we were kicked out.

You carried my beer, walked my bike, and covered me while I peed on someone’s stoop. Asking if I was alright, telling me about knife fights in Philly and The City, even in Arizona. Cave Creek, Arizona. I knew a man from Cave Creek who asked me to marry him. He had a three legged dog,he needed to take care of me. You remind me of him.

If when we have Indian food at my favorite place, the same place he proposed to me at, you decide you want to marry me, I will play along for a while. We will talk about getting a dog, sleep through the rain, sculpt autonomously with recycled junk, and take a tango class.

But you’ll want to go to The City, because you are in love with that small woman on your phone.
I’ll let you go too.

Telling myself that your white blood cells had dropped, the cancer took you from that studio apartment in your sleep. And then I’ll write about it.