i need that and i am endlessly sorry

to begin with. again. i’m sorry

that night on the 14th of june when i was about to turn 24  i had a dream.

i was sleeping alone in some random bed in some random guest house. in v. … not that random i guess.
you were there. the dream i mean. and it was so clear and so dull! because i could not talk when you were sitting opposite to me. we were in an old cab

i was looking at you unable to even open my mouth to make a sound and you were holding my both hands just to let me know it was alright.

you were not talking to me not to force my useless attempts to speak because you knew i couldnt… so we were just two silent handholders looking each other in the eyes.

in an old cab…you know the ones where back seats face one another. i’ve never been in one how figure. but even now i can actually feel the smell of it…

i woke up the next morning loving you with my all heart for your silence which i so desperately wanted to break that night in an old cab… and i couldnt.

you have chosen silence to comfort me
you have chosen silence to stand by me
you have chosen silence to join me in it

my partner in crime, my dark knight

by the power vested in me by ability of speech i now break the silence

it took me almost a year and an imaginary night in an old cab to do that and i swear i do not expect things to be any different from now on

i just hope that next time we will be walking in a field on a cloudy day… i want us to be talking then.

n.

p.s. maybe my sore and spotted brain came up with another paranoia, and all you wanted to say to me that night in a cab was simply ‘happy birthday’..?

06-19, 01:57

shadow and light

in the afternoon, life came to a standstill. out of nowhere, her name popped up on the screen. the curse of yahoo, where you see when your contacts are online. also shows your nomorecontacts, unfortunately.

seeing those two words gave my heart a good squeeze. life slowed down, focused on one spot on the mail website. and there it was again, everything, in the blink of an eye.

it took me a while to start blinking again. I took a deep breath. I got lost in the two words on the screen I learned to love, then. it’s been almost a year. it’s been only one day after esme’s birthday. as if I wouldn’t know it.

I’ve been thinking about her a lot these days. too many things surfacing, hinting at her , secretly, or shouting her name quite frankly.

- commercials for cheap flights to V. in my mailbox.

- her name (that is, not her very name, but the name of an ex-colleague with the same name though slightly different in spelling) on a website I had to work with.

- an interview about what I had done in the past where I couldn’t help talking about V. with the result that the interview went a little astray because I couldn’t get my mind away from esme.

then, esme was online today. what happened? did she forget to sign on as “invisible”? did she consciously sent a message to me? and what message could that be?

“it was my birthday yesterday, remember?”

I don’t know. and yes, I did remember it was your birthday yesterday. I woke up with this thought, and I wished you a happy birthday at 0630 in the morning. I held your face in my hands, and I looked you in the eye, and I said, “happy birthday, my love”, and I gave you a kiss on your lips, and they felt soft and yielding.

I wish you all the best, esme. please forgive me for not sending a card.

blue night temptations

The cold won’t yield. There is no sign of spring, no hint it will ever come. The sky changes its color, but it fades from darker grey to lighter, and back. The sky looks like myself, torn inside out.

Yet, there had been sun. Some weeks ago, in India. And color.    It had taken me a while to get used to this country. Not to the heat. I am used to heat. I love stale air, the feeling of beads of sweat rolling across my skin. I like it when my shirt sticks cold to my back.

But India is more than heat, heat in a physical sense. It is a heat that wraps your mind. Wraps it like a giant onion with skins and skins made of sound smell dirt color voices shapes masques textures faces moves textiles beauty taste eyes waves

There was no interpreter. I was talking and teaching in English, and it went well. Esme was with me, every day. I was looking into hazel eyes, framed by long black hair. I found depth and vertigo. I did not find Esme. I say light brown skin and dark, naked toes, white smiles. I did not see Esme.

I closed my eyes. She was with me. Far away, on an island, she lives, and loves. Here, I live, and love her.

so this is how 2009 feels when you’re not spending most of the day inside the smallest room of your apartment trying to keep at least some fluids inside your aging body. finally made it back to the office and, surprise: it was still there. now it’s about time to leave, but I’m reluctant to go. I rather sit watching the images from our city flickering over the e-frame on my desk. I feel my weight, heavier than ever, and still I have no idea of a way out of this.

what can you do when being infected with this kind of love desease? nothing. that’s how it feels. no matter what I tried, nothing blew your face out of my system, nothing killed the touch of your hand, nothing cut your kisses out my brain.

at least I am immune against something. those bloody germs some days ago really got me good.

2009, hum? what can I say? come here if you dare, and take what is left of me.

three more weeks, and I’ll be off for India. another series of lectures.

this time, far east.

this time, two weeks.

FATE, DON’T YOU DARE!

looking back, the plane truth is easy to see

the end of a year, be it calendrical or personal, not only reminds me of death. it has the same feel and taste. and, as death, it cannot be avoided.

the questions for me are: where am I? what have I done to deserve this? and, basically: who am I – and if yes, how many?    

never ask yourself questions like that without a sufficient amount of red wine. behind, not before you.

when I look back at what has happened during the 360something days that have passed this year, I don’t feel nothing. I don’t feel nothing because when you feel everything, you finally end up feeling nothing.

I was blessed and cursed. blessed by the love of the most wonderful woman on earth. cursed by my inabilty to get to grips with the situation.

I had found love. love as love should be, pure, deep, overwhelming. the real mccoy. and I lost it, and I deserved to lose it, it was right, for my love it was right so that she can live on.

at least, that’s what I keep telling me myself day after day. and even now, months after her last sms, even more months after we had kissed our final kiss, there is not a single day when Esme is not on my mind.

not a single day.

merry christmas, esme.

merry christmas.

no darkness was ever black enough

what is man? I’m surely not the first to ponder this question, and yet I won’t be the last. and how would I know, above all? what I know is: man is formed by his past, and sometimes the past doesn’t stay where it belongs, but pops up in the present.

this is what happened with fran. and is has nothing to do with esme. which is a lie. you can’t think two without thinking one. looking back six years into my past, I don’t have problems coming up with parallels. but don’t get me wrong: this does not mean that there is a scheme, a trait, a weak spot.

what it means is that more than  six years ago I fell for a dark-haired, sparkle-eyed girl from argentina I had met some years before. I fell for a girl I was having subtextual sex long before we first laid lips on each other (and, to be honest, in a clintonesque sense, we actually managed to never have sex at all).

I fell for a girl, with heart and brain and body and everything there is. I was burning like tinder, hot and consuming; life and emotion and desire itself was what dominated the week we had together together, and the weeks we had together before and afterwards without being together.

of course I killed her. killed her by not following my feeling. killed her by sticking to obligations. killed her by deserting everything we had. killed her by forcing her to live without me.

or, maybe: this was a blessing for her after all.

then, in 2008, I fell with all I am for a dark-haired, maelstrom-eyed girl from way east. no long foreplay, just straight to the bone. to the core. to the heart. no brain, no second thought, no rationalizing. just emotion, pure, pristine, immaculate.

and pain. so much pain.

how can you tell that you’re decaying beyond salvation? what is your unit of measurement? what’s the sign for having crossed the point of no return?

fran’s message, what do I do about it? nothing. why don’t I? because it doesn’t mean a thing. no, that’s wrong. I hope it doesn’t mean a thing thing. because the past is something I am afraid of. the past is something that determines me more that what is good for me.

and why is that so? maybe it is because I don’t believe I have something like a future. maybe it is because I believe that all I have is a past.

and the past is all gone by now. gone for good.

(good-)bay windows in san francisco

of course I reply to fran’s mail. ages ago, when there had been an us of some sort, we had passed gigabytes of communication data back and forth. mails, messenger, sms: after one-on-one in the “hole in the wall” and a fax which kindled our relationship we had gone totally digital.

regardless, it takes me hours to find words to mail her back.      whether them are the right words, I don’t know. feels strange inside.

yo, francesca!

the internet indeed is a powerful tool. so is photoshop (as you mentioned my picture). too bad there is no analog version.

nice surprise to read your voice again. you’re still with waechter in new york?

hope you’re doing fine.

kiss & hug,

mick.

I send it off to venture into the unknown. and wait, on my mind the image of fran. and the image of esme.

so close, so close, they seem to morph into each other in a continuous moebius strip.

mail from the past

takes me a while to realize who sent me this mail. I had expected much, but this, man, takes me by surprise. I read the sender again. wow, I think. what the, I think. that’s about all I can think of this very moment.

then, finally, after taking a deep breath, I click the mail open and read:

hola!

: )

long time no e-!”     i googled you last night, and i saw you are doing very well…the boss!

and, as handsome as i remember..

many kisses,
Fran

I read, and I remember: I remember a bar in San Francisco nine years ago. I remember my last day of a business trip on invitation of a games distribution company. I remember the girl with long dark hair and sparkling turqoise eyes who invited me to sit with her. I remember the evening we spent together talking and sharing beers and listening to the live music up front on the tiny stage in the “Hole in the Wall”.

I remember waving good-bye to you three years later. you are standing at the bay window of your apartment. if you had looked to the other side, you would see a corner of Alcatraz in the distance. but you are looking at me. I can’t see the tears in your eyes, but I know they are there. I feel your tears on my cheeks where they embrace mine like we had embraced minutes before for the last time.

I remember arriving one week before. you meet me in a cafe close to your place. we spend the day cooking and eating (meat, above all meat, because, as you told me, people from argentina eat nothing else) and drinking. more than 35 hours without sleep after I had gotten up early in the morning for this long-distance flight, we kiss for the first time. we have been eating for hours, but we are still hungry, but it is a hunger fried meat can’t kill.

I remember falling asleep five hours later, totally exhausted, filled with meat and red whine from a chinese shop, on her bed which during daytime doubles as a couch in the bay window where she will be standing small one week later waving me good-bye.

I remember driving out with her to the golden gate bridge by bus. enjoying ourselves at a party. having breakfast in a laid-back diner. listening to music again in the bar we met.

I remember us making love. wild, crazy, shy, passionate, but we never cross a certain border, no matter how badly we want it. we both want it. but we behave, sort of. still, I remember your hands and your lips all over my body, and I remember exploring yours thoroughly with all the instruments that come in handy. I don’t remember much sleep, though.

I remember trying to call her from the airport, but the phone swallows my last quarters without connecting me to her. I had no cell phone then that worked with the US frequencies, so my attempt to reach out to her a last time was futile.

I remember how it ended, and it was sad, but it was inevitable. more than six years ago it had ended, and there had been nothing since then, nothing but silence.

during this summer, I had been thinking of fran a lot.

now, she’s back in my life. and six long years drop off like dandruff. like they had never been.