#for jp

And so the midnight embraces me non-chalantly, much like the way your mirage snatched my whole being without warning.

Have you really piqued my interest or do you just remind me of someone from my past? My dreams suggest the latter, but reality is revealing itself too close to the former that I find myself aghast at the possibility that you might be a different adventure altogether.

Eventually, I’ve managed to control my thoughts and feelings. Day by day, I was able to constrain myself in having the urge to fall in love with you. I almost succeed.

But one day, You came up to me— Face to face— You didn’t warn me.

You looked at me, Smiling, Your cheeks showing The depths of your Dimples And your eyes, Searching for my face— With a hidden Message beneath them Like they’re telling me Something Your lips won’t Say to me.

And then you Walked away; Leaving me With a mystery, A puzzle, That I didn’t know If i want To unlock, If I want to Let my guards down Just for me To decipher What you really Wanted to tell And what you really Feel.

My ship steamed out of Barcelona in the late afternoon. I had reserved a bunk in a four-person cabin aboard an overnight ferry to Genoa. The four-bunk cabin is the modern equivalent of steerage: the least expensive available passage that doesn’t involve sleeping on a deck chair under an open sky.

The ship was a monstrous hotel-floatant, a little bit Vegas, a little bit Pasadena. The decor was what one might expect from a cruise ship that catered to the elderly, all soft pastels and subtle knit patterns, but the passengers were mostly young and boisterous, especially the hundreds of tattooed Hell’s Angels who had driven their motorcycles onto the ship earlier that afternoon.

When I reached my shared cabin, which resembled a university dormitory bedroom without windows, I found a young man named Carlo lounging on one of the bunks, reading a Spanish translation of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. We exchanged pleasantries in Spanish, and, although his idiom was more like South American español than Spanish Castilian, I assumed he was a Spaniard.

We hastened to the cantina because Carlo was concerned that “Los Ángeles del Infierno” would bankrupt the ship’s supply of cerveza within fifteen minutes of departure. The ship’s porters had, luckily, taken appropriate measures: there was no shortage of cerveza.

The cantina, a chintz-festive chamber at the ship’s bow, was populated by the aforementioned international cast of Hell’s Angels, along with a smattering of bemused civilians. There was a small stage on which two ladies were singing to a pianist’s live accompaniment while reading lyrics from a teleprompter built into the floor. The ladies were the cantina’s MCs, tasked with dragooning passengers into performing this odd form of karaoke.

Carlo spoke neither English nor French, thus our conversation was squeezed through the narrow portal afforded by my villainous Spanish. Carlo, it turned out, was short for Giancarlo; he was an Italian who had learnt Spanish while working in South America, now on his way home to Turin after a short vacation in Barcelona.