Falling

      I've been thinking of you the past few days. Don't know why. I guess I like hurting myself every now and again. I know it's useless. Waste of time. Certainly after all this time apart. Our lives are completely different now. I don't know where you live, what you do. Even friends of friends no longer hear of you. You've been gone now much longer than we were together.
      I don't know if I really remember your face, the way your bare skin felt, the sounds you made. It's been too long. But if the particulars are wrong, the truth is there, buried beneath all this time and all this living.
      Yes, it's useless. You don't love me, and I've learned to not love you. I don't know why you're on my mind.
      Maybe I saw someone who reminded me of you. Or heard someone speak, and in their voice, heard some echo of yours. Maybe because the nights are getting cooler and falling sooner and that reminds me of our time together. When we were young. Or at least willing to believe that love could overcome anything. When we were stupid.
      If you knew that I haven't loved anyone as much as I loved you or been loved as well as you loved me ... it wouldn't matter, would it? We had all that love and oh the passion, and all we managed to do with it was wreck each other and scar everything we touched. If there's a lesson there, I don't know what it is. Something banal about the hottest fire burning out quickly or love hurts or some other useless cliche.
      Funny after all this time that I can't think of you without feeling old angers stir. We fought well there at the end. No mercy. No quarter. We were very good at fighting, there at the end of it all.
      I don't even have any pictures of you anymore. I got rid of them one day last fall. A bonfire in my backyard one night to clean away yard waste. Leaves and paper ash floating up in the dark. When the fire died, I raked up the remains and made sure there were no embers. Then I sat and watched the silent stars come out.

September 2007