Lone Tree

Dear John,

When we started talking I began to feel like I wasn't a lone tree in an empty field anymore. I always sensed that I would love your mind from looking at your paintings, and behind that sense I believed your heart as well.

And then I did. Quickly. The way champagne hits, you engulfed my thoughts, ate up my mind, consumed my thought process.

I booked a flight to see you. $500.00 and 20,000 American Express points. I remember after, near the end of that weekend where we fit so puzzle piece, no tension, just one back and forth, like breathing together. I was sitting there on your balcony with your dirty white dog on my lap while you slept after we had sex. Looking at all of the people walking below, off to someplace. I sat there crying, the silent kind, because I did not want you to see me cry when you dropped me at the airport.

The night before you took me out for sushi on a date and I met all of the important people in your life. We wandered by the ocean. You went off on your own and ran into the water with your clothes on. I was wearing a dress I could not ruin. I sat there watching you, 200 meters in the distance, my feet feeling the tide. I was a lone tree. You were a lone tree. I knew then we would never work. And I also knew then that I really loved you.

When my silent cry stopped, I opened the glass door to return to the bedroom. For a brief moment in time I crawled next to you and wanted you to wake up on your own and realize I was leaving. I sat there with my mind, willing you to wake up, wake up. Just wake up. But I had to wake you up instead. We had ten minutes. Those hollow minutes where you just want to get it over with and keep it all at once. Last ten minutes of an elementary school day. I can't finish this math problem in time. Just let me get on the bus and ride next to strangers.

I remember the way those bus rides smell with the dirty and the seats that are cut and taped and the noise of kids singing to some Ace of Base song they all know by heart. I felt lone tree then too. And for the weekend we spent together, I did not feel lone tree. Well, except for that ocean part. But we were lone trees together at least.

On the ride to the airport you asked me "Would you rather..." questions. You were filling my silence. But when you kissed me goodbye and your tongue dipped into the back of my mouth and I embraced you with my right hand behind your sweaty neck and fingers twisted in your black Cuban curls, I knew it would not ever be like that weekend again. Goodbye. A goodbye and I could not even say it.

I got on to the plane and sat there crying while listening to Bon Iver and feeling like I was coming down from the worst cocaine withdrawal I have had in my life. You were an emotional cocaine trip to me. You had texted me while I was walking through the airport. I could not write you.

You were number 6. The 6th man I made love to. Even though it didn't mean anything to you. Even though you hooked up with your ex two weeks later and told me you were going to. Even though I told you it hurt me.

Slowly we stopped texting and talking non-stop. We were going to see each other soon though. 22 days later and you squeezed me in for three hours in New York. Enough time for a drink, an in bar makeout. Some flirting. I did not recognize you the same way. I felt like I had placed plexy glass between my skin and yours. My emotion was in a Ziploc.

You massaged my tailbone and bit my shoulder between the bone and my neck. You kissed me and I soaked you up breathing you in and wedging my nose between your neck biting you back. I bit you hard enough to leave marks. We laughed. We discussed various nothings. You tickled me. I squealed and I looked into your eyes. You look like an owl. A big, dark eyed owl.

My emotion was in a ziplock. You pried it open. We got to your hotel. I showered. Came out with only a tshirt. Our bodies enveloped each other as we violently crawled around the bed. You picking me up. Tossing me. Me fighting, then surrendering. After the orgasms, I held you. You felt me breathing. You placed your hands on different sections of my back. Like a doctor listening to a heartbeat, your hands the stethoscope. The ten minute feeling returned.

I got up. I put my clothes on. You watched me dress. I put on my flat sandals instead of my Louboutins. I had no one to impress in my cab ride back to the East Village. You sat and watched me, your head propped up against your right hand, like a 37 year old male model, sexy posed...wide-eyed like a doe. Deep brown chocolate black doe-owl. Not human. Curiosity instead of compassion. Observing me like I was a NatGeo spectacle.

Then we moved toward the door, I kiss you goodbye, we embrace. I cry. You are cocaine. You don not feel for me what I feel.

I cannot look you in the eyes. Salty drips down my face. Elevator takes minutes. Literal minutes. I slouch my shoulders down as if I can sink into the floor. You watch from the door. WHY ARE YOU WATCHING ME.

I cry the whole way home. You text "Te quiero."

I manically text my friend to keep from responding. I want to SCREAM at you. You want to keep me hooked.

Since my flights home from you, I find myself eating chocolate. I have never craved chocolate before in my life. I do not even LIKE chocolate. But I am eating it like a maniac. I have frozen bars in my fridge and I eat them when I cannot sleep after I brush my teeth. If you text me, I smoke a joint so I do not respond. I want to respond. I want to keep you. I told you I wish your were keepable.

"I want you to be in my life long term" You said, and continued, "Because that means more to me than just sex, which means nothing to me."

Long-term.

I'm having conversations with you, with myself, in my silence. Someday you will call me as if nothing has changed. Only with those silent conversations with myself, I will have said everything I wanted to say to you, and you will mean nothing to me.

Lone tree.