Untitled #22

When she leaves (town -- not the country, just him) he spends weeks without speaking her name. He notices as he chokes on it when his mother asks if her plane is leaving that day. Yesterday, he sputters, and she looks surprised because he has been this non-stop babbling machine of <> this and that for so long that it doesn’t feel like himself.

But he thinks about her everysecond, and he feels her gone around every corner. He resorts to his old ways and a life that seems less bright and shiny, and never once speaks of her if he can help it. He doesn’t ask about her (she made it safely, bad news travel fast and there’s been none); he smiles politely at their friend (her next of kin, he thinks, and does a terrible job at not being jealous) and his remind me to tell you all about her and I’ll forward you her e-mails, and indicates people to go to him for news.

When a well-intentioned girl finally asks him if he misses her his no is so quick, so automatic, so easy in his lips that he almost cries because it echoes a yes in his ears. He chuckles sadly and considers correcting himself, but instead chooses to play it lightheartedly, too afraid that people will see through.

So he thinks about her, that is all he does, and he writes to her because that is what he does; he keeps her name a distant memory in the back of his throat because he has made a career out of people leaving him and he has always been better at having nothing.

That is why her first post brings out a sound, a squealish sound that is completely foreign to him as is this motionlessness. He reads every line carefully and thinks that she probably didn’t read a word of his three-page letter and wrote the same to everybody, and this isn’t love cause if you don’t wanna talk about it…

But he suddenly feels a lot more talkative than he has in ages.

(He has always thought they only speak what is strictly necessary.)

Dec 19, 2007.-