—-Jesse
Isn’t that Jesse over there?” Said a friend as I turned from the pool and took of swig of my beer. Silence.
Isn’t it?”
More silence.
With the taste of beer fresh in my mouth I replied, “Yes”. “Yeah it is”.
I thought of this moment a lot. I thought of what I would feel seeing my ex in public and with another man. I thought of what I would say, how calm I wanted to be, how “together” I wanted to seem. I thought about what he would think of me and all of the emotions that would overwhelm us. Would I be angry? Would I be sad? Would I be corgal? Now here, everything felt different but somehow I was unmoved by the feeling. All of the hurt that was once there, now gone. I struggled to find an emotion and could not.
Are you okay?” Checked in my friend.
“You know what?. I am surprisingly okay”.
I could see the doubt in his face but I knew in that moment that I was. Somehow all of our history, all of my anger dissipated. I took a zip of my beer again.
—-Vladimir
As I turned from the bar and took a swig of my beer, I could see the unescapable smile of his. The group of friends surrounding him. Gragarious as he always was. There he stood. Not a mirage, but him. In the actual flesh. I took another sip to ensure it was not the booze kicking in. It’s him. It really is. I though of the last time we had been face to face together. It was 6 years ago as he was walking out the door. Anger in my heart is where I had stored it, but now…not anger. A feeling of joy took over. Seeing his smile made me remember the good times we had together and all of the laughs. Oh his laugh.
But what would I say? I had done him so wrong that finding the words to greet him would not be sufficient. Should I bring up our past now? 6 years later? And in this social space? What was the point? I wanted to walk away, but I couldn’t. My body frozen. I look to find his gaze but was unable to. So i dug deep, to find that courage I once had and forth I went.
A day later we were having coffee as if nothing had happened. We did talk but this time we both felt so adult. Me with my guilt and him with his anger. Somehow all of that felt to have dropped and what remained was kindness.
—-Raul
Oh Raul…Love of my life. What words can be said to describe how I feel about you. It been 5 years since I last saw you and thinking about seeing you makes me nervous again. You about all were the person that opened my heart when I thought it would be closed. You showed me love even in the times when I was not kind. You allowed me to be me and in all ways accepted me. You showed me adventure and what things in life are the most important. I miss that and I missed you. So sitting here across from you make all these feeling boil up. From the night that we slept on the street and cried, not because we were sad, but because were happy. From when I saw you the first time, naked, exposed and in all your glory. I knew then that I would love you. So what do I say to you now? What do I say that will allow you to forgive me for the cowardly decisions I made in my life. Somehow I know that you will not see it as so, and you didn’t. You accepted me and now I can move forward in my life knowing someone like you has a space in my heart. A big space that I don’t think will soon be replaced. “Te quiro chino”