i walked down the street today listening to chopin, nocturne, op. 9 no. 2 in E flat major. you gave that to me two autumns ago. my street was fully bloomed in the colors of the season, and i passed by an old asian man sitting on his stoop, probably in the same position he's sat in for the past twenty years. watching workers, students, families make their way through their lives, from apartment to el stop and back again, never looking up to notice that he exists, with sad eyes and wrinkles deep set in his brow.
i realized when we spoke last week that it might be the last time we speak. you didn't let me say any of the things i wished for so long i could tell you - that i am okay, that i am working so hard to be better, that i have found someone who makes me feel whole: me. now it's become apparent that you'll be coming into town this weekend. i don't know if you made that public knowledge so that it would come to my attention; regardless, i am going about my life. because it is finally mine. neither you nor anyone can ever take that from me again. i wish i could tell you that i forgive you, and that i hope that someday you can forgive me, too. i hope that you are happy, and that you trust that i am, as well, and without you.
i wish i could say that i feel a sense of grief for these recent losses. i feel as if i'm living in some kind of wind tunnel, me and the old asian man sitting together, staring into the world from a distance, not knowing when to step in and when to sit back and observe. i think that i fail to grieve because, in fact, i've been grieving all along. it is only now that i've come to accept. and while you pop into my head from time to time, listening to mika or she&him or, heaven forbid, miley cyrus, it almost seems like a distant memory. like looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars, or talking underwater. the basic shapes and sounds are there, but nothing is concrete enough to understand anymore.
don't ask me why a walk on a crisp fall day elicits these kind of feelings in me. perhaps it's the simply terrifying and liberating notion that my life is finally for no one but me. that it is as fragile and tenuous as the cycle of these leaves, year after year, and not worth getting so worked up about. please don't take this as a bitter old goodbye, but rather as a release. a revelation.
no one belongs here more than you.
