Remember the night we met?
That night? You were drunk.
I wasn't that drunk.
Yes.
What?
I remember.
The city seems colder without you here. Forgive my poetic sensibilities, but the world blurs, tumbles, and falters in your absence. I wander the city like a madman, though I am certain of my sanity. Drag queens, aging and saccharine, laugh tinkling bells at my aimless wandering. They like me drunk; they love me sober.
“You're bleeding, darling,” they whistle. The night breeze tugs at their faux platinum wigs.
“I know.” I didn’t, of course, didn’t even feel so much as a sting.
I should have known better. Nobody taught me the dangers of fire, but I suppose it is obvious enough. You touch a raging flame, you burn. But no power in the world could keep me from your fire; I had to burn for myself.
You taught me what love was. All the good and the bad - if there is even a difference - I learned from you. From your lips that could be so gentle and attentive, so unyielding and unforgiving. Maybe I should have listened to my sister. Maybe I should have avoided older men until I was one.
We all carry two sides to us, according to you. Like coins fashioned into heads and tails. We can be so very good and we can be so very bad.
What side will I see tonight? I wondered at times. A thought that kept me up until the door creaked open. I was young, you see, too young to be holed up in cheap motels and drinking until the morning (or was I just the right amount of young?). You were silent, but I knew your thoughts tumbled within you in waves. You were restless and I was naive; we stayed up until the morning talking. No, I talked and you listened. Nobody had ever listened to me like that.
Sometimes, we even explored the city together. In your presence, I often forgot myself. Because it's so easy to fall for someone who understands you. But for all our enchanted nights together, you never once let me touch you or undress you (until it was too late).
Were you afraid to be seen as a man? Did you not think I would love you still? How could you be so fucking pathetic? I cared for you when nobody else did. The world hated you. Your family never even acknowledged your existence. You were a burnout, a has-been, a man who could have been everything but instead, he was nothing at all. And still I loved you because...
...You brought me flowers once. Beautiful crimson roses. The kind lovers present to each as a symbol of affection. My heart wouldn't stop beating, one small gesture and I was done for.
“Thank you. I've never gotten flowers before.”
But you just seemed amused, it never meant all that much to you, “careful, you might just fall in love.”
“Love is a strong word, reserved for, say, a custom Valentino, the demise of your enemy, or the birth of your child.”
You raised a brow, “the birth of your child placed beneath a custom Valentino?”
You laughed and I tried to memorize that moment, like a painter committing his masterpiece to memory, knowing it was destined to burn, to never last.
Winter came and I realized I could no longer do this anymore. You had broken a heart I didn't even know I had. Friendship worked for you, but fuck that. How could I be friends with the love of my life? Maybe a part of you knew I was losing patience and interest. Or maybe a part of you had come to care for me, too. (Well, that was unlikely, right?). So, you did the impossible: you let me see you. Beneath my fingertips, the muscles of your arms remained tense. But you were human after all: your skin, slick and warm, could not hide the veins that pulsed hot blood through your body. Knotted hair, willowy limbs, sickly skin. You were human. And you were fragile like blown glass. I tried not to laugh. You were so wound up, it was about time you came undone.
“Are you going to stay?” You asked softly and I sighed. This was still a game, after all. You give a little, you take a lot.
“Are you going to admit you love me?”
“I... don't.” And I saw the effort this lie cost you. And I knew you said it despite knowing how it would hurt me. “I don't know how to love.”
“How very edgy of you. Princes of darkness can't have boyfriends now?”
That was the last time I ever made you laugh.
Hey, do you always talk this much?
No, never. Why do you ask?
You don't strike me as the talkative type.
I'm not.