I can boldly say I learned.

I thought about the way my body conducted the heat of his body once, the way our tongues got tangled kissing, the way I miss sliding my fingers down the asymmetries of his face, the way I miss his arms around my waist, my head resting on his shoulder, my tears on his white t-shirt, my hands against his chest, my hands pushing the door, my hands now covering my face. There was anger in his eyes as I closed the door, but at least there was at once a trace of feeling. 

I thought about him tonight. The way my eyes undressed him, the way he slowly undressed my feelings. The way he watched me strip myself naked of dignity, barefoot, homeless, a gypsy, stripped naked of memories, drenched in illusions. I thought about him and the way silence numbs away that tingling feeling, the way absence is a diluting substance, the way old songs no longer trigger thoughts of him, the way I still think of him sometimes without doing too much thinking. 

I thought about the absence of waiting and how it still somehow leaves you wanting. How it still leaves you craving, not the familiar, but the unknown. How you can hide your desires but you can’t hide from them. 

I thought about him tonight. The way I was just his object of desire after all, a pretty doll, a frame on the wall, a golden medal that proved to be a fake. I thought about the way my brain did not matter after all when I could not share my body, the way some men like to chase then kill when they can no longer win the game. 

I thought about her tonight and how I learned the hard way that you can’t kill them with kindness even when you want to, that sometimes ‘forever’ is too short and your howling heart is not enough to end the shooting. I thought about her and the way warmth transforms itself to war, the way cold war seeps under your door at nights and leaves you searching for a way to stop the jealousy infection.

I thought about the way lust can choke us all but in the end it’s friendship that hurts the most when gone, in the end it’s companionship we mourn for, that leaves us searching for a blanket, searching for a soul to hear the echo of our own. 

I thought about the way all souls howl the same way in loss yet not all of us happen to be howling at the same time. Love, it is a losing game and I guess we all learn with time. How to play and how to lose. How to be bold and when to retreat, how to not judge ourselves for crumbling in defeat at times, how to release, to laugh it off and cry it all out. 

****

He taught me how to lose with grace. He taught me that life goes on even after it has fallen apart, even after your unnecessary sorrys have poured out of your mouth and bleached your skin, bleached your self esteem.

He taught me that time is too precious to spend in the absence of feelings, that our bodies are not temples for everyone to walk in, that our bodies are houses made by stacking up bricks, one by one, made up of vessels, blood and sweat, unwanted fluids that noone’s entitled to but that we have the right to share. To share with our guests, with those who make space to rest in our dark parts the same way they reside in the good ones.

She taught me that sometimes even what you thought was forever can find the exit door, false fire alarms would drive away most. And when the fire gets real you roll up your sleeves and put it out yourself, you roll up your sleeves and – guess what – you live. This is the end of the story and, in the end, you are alive. 

He taught me there are people, places, things that we cannot go without, yet we go on anyway. Despite the damage, the fear, the loss, we go without, we go on without, within we go on burning. He taught me there are always new ways to feel lonely and presence may be suffocating but in the end it’s absence that twists the knife, that pulls the knot, that strangles all feelings. He taught me to be patient in loneliness, sit still in the void, make noise in the void, move mountains if needed to see the light, beyond the mountains you can usually find light. 

****

And sometimes there’s nothing beyond. Yet we still live on to fight the good fight, to make dreams and crush them then start from scratch, to still scratch each other’s backs when the going gets tough. To hold hands as we shiver in the darkness.

I guess I just came here to say that the going gets tough without you. 

I guess I can boldly say I learned. And I hope, I hope there is still space for me to fit and find comfort in your darkness.