#falling face first

He hasn't been gone for a month, but I've already begun to run around in circles desperately seeking someone to fill the Evan-shaped hole in my life. I feel like I need to put an ad in the paper: "Want warm body for bed, academic discourse for head, Prince Charming in stead (of summer romance now dead). Please call Allegra, and be prepared to listen to self-righteous whining."

I am circling, circling. Returning to old habits and vices in the absence of something greater to focus my energies on. Returning to living off of soybeans and the grace of God as I wonder vainly about what life would have been like if we had both broken up with our significant others sooner. If we would have found each other and let the warm animals of our bodies love what they love.  Three months was not long enough with you. Three months was cruel, and now it hurts -- in the marrow of my bones, and in my heart of hearts that I didn't even know existed.  "I can't believe how soundly I slept next to you in my tiny twin bed: toe to toe, head to head."

I was giving advice to one of the baby queers this weekend -- I don't know when I got so wise -- when he was talking about his boyfriend who turned sour. I told him that your first love doesn't leave you. When someone leaves an indelible impact on your life, you will inevitably find yourself chasing their phantom after they are gone. You will do anything (or anyone?) to attempt to forget them, or to numb your heart to them. 

I cannot anesthetize my heart to you. I cannot forget kissing the living daylights out of you as you were mid-sentence, then pulling away slyly and saying, "you should really talk less."

I cannot forget the comfortable silences we shared.

I cannot forget the way you brought me to poetry; as I wrote notes and left them on your bed when I went to work, listing my favorite things about you.

I cannot forget waking up alongside you as you nuzzled in between my shoulderblades and sleepily mumbled, "spot."

I cannot forget tracing my name into your back with my index finger, over and over again in hopes that it would show to anyone else who uncovered your flesh: "mine, mine, mine."

I cannot forget saying "I love you" to someone for the very first time. I did it of my own volition, despite the panic bubbling up in my chest. I did it, and for that brief and fleeting moment -- just as for those three months -- my heart was so full that I thought it was going to explode.