oh, Mxxxx, how could we let this happen? i'm sorry, sorry belatedly and in advance. i could've said this so long ago, but i listened to everyone else, and decided that in this one case i'd let societal norms (specifically, the god-damned "bro code") dictate my actions, or i guess the lack thereof.
i'd like to start by saying, "somehow, somewhere in the last few years, i fell wildly, uncontrollably in love with you," but it'd be kinda a lie, because i know when, and how, and where. it was the basement, where we hid from the brutish realities of the city, thick walls and no windows between us and that vicious summer sun yet plenty of drug-dealer echoes bouncing their way into our sanctuary, rubbing around in our ears and leaving permanent markers, little ingrained twitches to accompany shouts of "lights! lights!" even though we had no worries, nothing to hide... well, some worries, some things to hide. i'm drifting again, so let's get to the point in the next two sentences.
we'd decided to let Sxxxx live with us, which he did quietly until one day he brought you home with him. you came in, took a hit from our blunt, sat down, and joined in on mario kart.
i remember looking to the side, squinting a bit through the smoke (illuminated by the light from the television, there were no other lights on - at least that's how i remember it, because i barely remember lights ever being on down there), and wondering where exactly you had come from. Sxxxx hadn't told us he even had a girlfriend, not your name or what you did or anything; as far as i could tell, stoned as i was (and by this point i'd finished with most of my hard drugs, all the acid, all the speed and coke, that was all in the past already), you'd fallen from the ether, pulled in by nothing more than my desire for a gorgeous female presence.
oh, christ, how i'd have fallen all over myself if i'd met you in any other circumstance! i'd have lost my shit, all that stereotypical name-forgetting and grammar-mangling, "what job have you?" and so on. if i'd been using a knife, i'd have lost a finger. if i'd been driving, i'd have crashed. i know i forgot to breathe for a minute, probably didn't introduce myself for a full ten minutes.
or maybe not. i might've been suave as hell, as suave as one can be when playing an 8-year-old video game and smoking weed in the basement one calls home. at least my parents didn't live upstairs. but my memory reconstructs things as it will; i'm not sure our first meeting even occurred like this. it might've been different. but it's how i remember it.
but time went on, and i hated how he treated you, said as much quietly, to myself, in neutral zones to unnamed parties (such as: facebook, blogs, this right here, etc.). i don't know what exactly i could've said about why you and him being together was wrong, specifically, but that's because i was just jealous. i wanted you.
then the space started growing, and he started drinking again, and the space grew more, and it was months between sightings of you.
whatever. this is starting to feel emo as hell, so i'm gonna bail. i love you, in a way i haven't felt for years. i think i love you enough not to subject you to that whole experience, though. i can be a little overwhelming. i can be a little vacant. but maybe, one night, i'll get drunk and forget about all that.
and, Mxxxxx... i could love you still, if only you'd give me a chance to do so. it's not gone yet; it flares back up a little, every time our eyes meet. but it's like a concentrated effort has been made to prevent there being any history there. there is so little shared feeding whatever fire is there.
*bail*
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