“What was she like? I’ve waited my entire life to be asked that question. God. What was she like? She was beautiful. She tasted like the ocean and smelled like clementines. She wore peach lipstick and brown mascara. On Sundays she would fill the bathtub with roses and milk. When it was spring and the air felt raw against your skin, she would wake herself up at three in the morning and smoke cigarettes in the balcony. When I gave her roses on some date she gave them to a homeless man on the way to the restaurant. She wore dirty sneakers with the words “peace” written in red sharpie and a white dress that hugged her wide hips to my mothers 58th birthday party. The one where ladies asked what she was studying and she replied Art History. She was in Pre-Med at the top university in New York City. She said things like “we don’t open the mail on Tuesdays” and “let’s tell the barista you’ve just found out you’re cured from cancer”. When her mother would call begging her to come to church she would send her poems about how birds on the telephone line are her religion. She only liked walking around the city if it rained. What was she like? She went to train stations because she thought the homeless man playing the violin was the best concert she’d ever find. I often asked her what she thought of me. Her laugh was like honey. When I took her to my gallery opening she invited her taxi driver. She had the moon tattooed on her inner thigh. She spelled the words “infinity” onto the crook of my neck. I remember once she took a photograph of an elderly man speaking to his wife at her gravestone. She called me on the way home: “Well what were you doing at the cemetery?” I asked. “Robert,” She’d said, “Don’t ask such absurd questions.” What was she like? I woke up alone some mornings. Her suitcase would be scattered and she screamed because she couldn’t pay the gas bill. Our lights would turn off. What was she like? She’d light candles in every single corner of the house. She would read these big books written by Russian authors who didn’t know the difference between love and lust. “Oh,” She once said, “And you do?” I laughed. I was so in love with her. The curves of her hip. The smooth tint of her back. Her eyebrows. Her smile. How her eyes were green sea’s I saw in travel brochures. What was she like? She was the type of person to write you love poetry and bake pies and convince you that 4:50 AM was the best time of day. What is she like? And this is the part where my throat will burn and I’ll scratch my collar bones because how much it hurts, “Why don’t you ask him” I’ll say. Why don’t you ask him”
— I’m sorry it had to end like this
