28. when we can- we can

Dear T,

Words feel useless, the more they come out.

I hope this will be the last letter I write to you like this, but who knows when I can stop?

I am waiting for you to leave now still, when you’re ready. I don’t have the strength to do it myself just yet. There are many ways to say goodbye and none of them neat and tidy. So it is easy, I don’t mind that you come to me to breathe in my ear one more time. I am happy for this indulgence though I am surprised you choose to take part. I am surprised you use the same lies as me after all, the way I kiss X on his neck, saying sorry, on his mouth, begging sorry, pushing my body onto him in cringing apology, it is the same way you murmur uneasily that the last thing you want is to make this any harder for me. It doesn’t matter what we say or don’t say, it is easy. I have a whole lifetime to adjust to afterwards when you are gone and I am nothing if I cannot adjust. I hope only that you know what you are doing, on my side, I know perfectly, my choice, I’m waiting once more to be a body against yours, craning my whole body over your cock to fuck you one more time, I am listening, just one more time, for you, and then you’ve cum and so have I, I’ve done it for me, but also for you, shy and proud and relieved and laughing and moaning out my undulating after-shocks, and you’re sighing, muttering your post-orgasm nonsense, murmuring…babe…babe…and I feel, for a moment again, free, and I don’t care that you have to leave soon after, because I feel, for a moment again, perfect.

Think of me when you can.

Love,
Learn

the one?

because i could be the one. i would make u laugh, i'd always smile, i'd believe
in you, listen to you, talk to you, i'd hold you, i'd set you free and if things
were bad i'd make sure you pull through, i'd try to enjoy every second i had
with you, i'd offer u gum, i'd find sexual innuendo in anything, i'd always
answer if u called at 2 am, i'd play videogames with u and kick ur ass, i can
probably eat more then you (and enjoy it more too), i'd travel the world with
you, i'd speak to u in french, we'd go for walks, we'd count the stars, u could
be urself around me, i'd mudwrestle with u if u like, or we could just sit here
in my room on my bed and think of what to do next and that'd be cool too

I have not changed much since you first contacted me, after reading my ad, close to five years ago.

I have started using capitals and full words. And my words do come with more difficulty than they did back then, stiff with the starch of interweaved experiences. I have stopped bubbling and babbling smoothly like a decorative fountain. I have remained dry for long stretches, rumbling deep, sometimes a geyser, sometimes a carefully structured dam.

I am still quiet. I am still sweet with a dark side. I still navel-gaze.
But I suddenly have opinions to express. And I suddenly feel graceful in my awkwardness, and comfortable in my darkness.

We’ve already played our video-games, and I decidedly did not kick your ass. I’ve spoken to you in french, and we’ve gone for walks and counted stars, and I do pick up the phone when you call at 2 am, though not every time.

I am still always in the mood, baby, but now I begin to know what for. We have cum together sneaky location after location, across oceans, in bathrooms, in stairwells, in cars and basements and on futons covered with dark sheets. I’ve felt a little more alive, and you’ve said you have felt a little more whole.

I’ve pressed a phone to my ear and listened to only you, and tried to talk. I’ve occasionally made you laugh. I have whispered my fantasies into words, dark and secret and scary, not because they’re about sex, but because they’re about me.

I’ve learnt to appreciate a real striptease, and how we have slowly and hesitatingly revealed our desires, rushing forward and covering back, and captured each other in brief glimpses aching month after month. And I’ve been amazed by how there is still so much for us to take off.

I’ve met many since I’ve met you, some of them indirectly through you. I’ve admired many. I’ve felt scarily the same as some. I’ve felt unique. I’ve felt transcendent. I’ve given up my first man to a friend. I’ve hooked up randomly. I’ve sold a blowjob for a cuddle. I’ve let a man watch me cum while he played his guitar one lonely middle of the night. I’ve spilled naked photos and insinuations and emotions to others. I’ve shared my closest thoughts. I’ve become suddenly awfully and wonderfully and carelessly open, hooked into everyone, guts hanging out, corny heart on sleeve. I’ve felt like I am not enough, like I am larger than life, like I just might be perfectly okay.

I have had more courage that I thought possible. Like when I watched you fuck her. Like when I told you how I always thought you would always be in my life in some form or shape. (It surprised me with how quickly and fervently you said you felt the same.)

I haven’t had courage enough. I still pick up the phone with a cool what’s up, and I still accommodate your lack of love for me every day with a shrug and a quick bye when you need to go.

I have had the pleasure of taking you into my body. I have had the pain of not knowing you. I have held you. I have set you free. Things have been bad, and I could not make sure you pulled through. But I waited, and stayed, and you did. As did I.
We have felt lonely in each other's presence. I have discovered this to be an experience more genuine than most. I have found it strangely intimate and comforting. I have found it bound me to you.

I have found a friend who could always make me smile, laugh, cry, hurt, cum and pull my hair out.

I’ve found no definitions for love, and I have felt love’s flavour tingeing everything I taste, everywhere I go.

I have learnt you can stop trusting someone and still love them, and I know there is another one out there with you now, doing just that for you too. This has been my tightest knot of learning, and one of the few I wish I could undo.

I have been angry with you. Angry with how you left me feeling unhinged, thrown into chaos. Angry with how you tried to disappear me when I was not convenient. Angry with how I cannot seem to leave and angry with how you make me willingly hurt another.

I have hated you for your lack of courage, for settling for less, for trampling dreams.

I have ached for how you’ve decided to live with someone who you deny of the self I crave - your sprawling, complex, organic, live self. How you damp your harmonics and synthesize a voice that is almost but never quite like yourself.

I’ve felt that you choose to make a farce of yourself just when it should count the most and I am appalled at the waste and it makes me want to kick you, hard.

I have understood you. Sometimes.

We have worn out and shone back up. We have worn each other like masochistic badges, each displaying the other’s strength of spirit, just by grace of still being pinned in the same spot.

You have stayed with your girlfriend. I have stayed alone. We have stayed fucking, and we have stayed friends.. We have stayed, and we have stayed and we have stayed and not known what this constancy could ever mean, except maybe that it made us feel secure.

I have not changed much since you first contacted me. My room’s still messy. I still scribble poems, even if they’re now on word documents. I still want to travel the world and mud-wrestle. I still find sexual innuendo in everything.

I've tried to enjoy every second, whatever has been given. And I still want you here on my bed, in my room, thinking of what next we could do.